Anthem of Our Dying Day
by kivce
Summary: He lives in a city on the edge of meltdown, ruled by the tyrant that took everything away from him. In a world that hates him for what he is, Tails learns the hardest thing to do is trust. [alternate universe] discontinued
1. Part I: Skin and Sin

**domi|note:**

**warning:- **This story will contain varying amounts of OCs, angst, torture, swearing, sexual implications, drug references, war, violence, prejudice, and possibly implied rape. Just, what the fuck ever. If you don't like that shit, _don't _read it! Flames will be used for toasting my marshmallows.

Amazing thanks to the wonderful **Pixelated Firefly** for being my beta for the story.

**disclaimer:- **Varying references are made during this story to things I have not created, nor receive any profit for. Sonic belongs to SEGA, meaning most that lie therein.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>War does not determine who is right - only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter One  
>.<em>  
>"Skin from burns will become stronger… if you heal well."<br>…_  
>All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me) <em>by Bullet for My Valentine

* * *

><p><em>"We're gonna make it Honey, we'll be alright…"<em>

He was four. He had the mind of a barely developed seven year old, the coordination of a six year old, and the emotional capacity of burning rubble. And even then, there were some things that child prodigies would never understand. The dying shrieks of his loved ones around him, and the fire reflecting in eyes of cold sapphire… he couldn't understand why it was happening. A mind as cunning as a fox still couldn't understand why his family was dying around him.

_"__Let's play hide and seek, I'm it."_

He'd waited hours for his mother to find him. Determined to win the game he ignored the screaming from outside, the smell of burning wood and of something far more foul drifting through the air. He huddled in the corner of the basement, leg twisted to curl around a box of family photographs while his arm leant on a stack of his old baby clothes. Becoming thirsty, he'd decided to forfeit the game and trek up the basement steps two at a time to tell his mom he'd given up when there was a deafening crash.

His father crashed through the door like a rag doll, shattering the wood and knocking him off his feet. After the initial collision his father wrapped his arms around him and used his body to absorb most of the impact, hitting the basement floor with a devastating force. He wriggled out of his fathers limp, heavy arms and his head snapped up to the robot trudging down the stairs. He couldn't make out the details. The fire was blazing all around it and it's huge hulking body was surrounded with a blackness found from knocking out the electricity.

Adrenaline thrumming through his veins, he turned back to his father and pulled on his whiskers, tugging at his hair to get him to open his eyes. They did, but that pale, dead blue spoke of sadness and defeat, something even _he _could understand.

_"My little soldier…"_

The little fox started crying. His father wouldn't get up. There were gashes and cuts in his side, his brown fur was awash with drying and fresh crimson. His spine had made a disgusting _shuck _noise. His leg had hit a broken pipe, breaking his skin and his leg.

_"Fly away Tails. Do it now."_

_"Papa!"_

The robot was almost among them, the wooden stairs of the basement giving way under its weight so that it crashed to the floor with an impact that shook the foundations of their house. He fisted his hands in his father's shirt.

_Get up! GET UP!_

Tears blocking his vision as he shook his father with all the strength his little body contained.

_"I love you, Son."_

He placed his closest hand on his face, but it soon went limp and fell to the ground.

_"Fly away now. Go and don't come back."_

_"But-"_

_"Do it NOW, TAILS!"_

The robot's mechanical hand banged before them, catching one of his tails under the huge impact and breaking the skin, grinding the bone. The little fox shrieked in agony, trying to get his tails to rotate, but the pain he felt in his left one hindered the movement. He faced the robot, wiping his tears on his arm and jumping onto its head, using the height to bounce back onto the remains of the stairs and running away as fast as possible until he stumbled to a stop.

Amidst the rubble of their home and the smell of burning carcass. His mother lay dead at his feet. She choked on her own blood and the ash pushing aside oxygen and taking residence. A broken necklace of blue and white lay at her feet. Bullets peppered her side, illuminated by the fire in the kitchen. He blanched, completely unaware of what to do. Tears burned his eyes and streamed until he couldn't see any more.

_Mom! MOM!_

_"We're gonna make it Honey, we'll be alright…"_

There was another slam at the door. The faint outline of a man illuminated with the fires eating up his home, with a voice so sinister and a silhouette so strange and round, pointed to him, his voice holding no emotion...

_"Get rid of the little one too."_

_"Yes Eggman."_

The little boy shrieked, grief stricken and scared beyond anything he had ever felt beforehe bolted for the stairs of their house, hoping his room would provide shelter. Despite being a prodigy, it was the dumbest thing he could have done that night. At the entrance to his bedroom, he tripped over his lame tail and his ankle was grabbed, his tiny body being dragged back into the hallway.

Kicking and screaming, he was held in a soldiers arms when-_A soldier!_

He was human! This was his chance.

He looked up and saw a deception, darkness so clouded that he couldn't see the evil in his acts.

He grabbed a hold of the soldier's arm and bit hard enough to draw blood, effectively making him drop to the ground while the kit spit out the taste. He didn't waste time, eager to get out of this dreadful place. He made it to his window sill, tripping over toys and rumpled bed sheets that seemed so insignificant now as bullets rained in his general direction.

_"Stupid mutants! I'll get you, you little brat!"_

He leapt out of the window, aiming to get to the next rooftop. The pain was arching through his body, making him weaker and weaker by the second. He managed to get the alleyway below, less scathed than if he had just fallen out and…

It was littered with Mobian carcasses.

Through the flames and tears, he made out the shape of more robots and soldiers, guns cocked, and eyes blazing a venomous red. Ignoring the pain in his body, in his tiny thrumming heart, in his bleeding soul, he turned around and ran and ran and ran…

* * *

><p><em>Be My Escape<em> by Relient K

* * *

><p><strong>Part I: The Grand Prix<strong>

_10 years _on.

Tails was ready to make a face plant on his watch. It'd be better than mentally racing with the minute hand as it _tick, tick, ticked _it's boring way across the face of the boring-ass clock, currently holding it's (boring!) position as warden in high regard. They weren't allowed to escape the campus until it rung. And the stupid bell wouldn't ring for the better half of thirty minutes. He rubbed his eyes with his wrists and slowly dragged them down his face so the fleshiness around his eyeballs could be seen.

_Boy _was he a _charmer._

"Leave your face like that and it's gonna stick."

"Only 'coz you'll stick it that way," the yellow fox retorted, holding his cheek up with his fists as he turned his face to lock eyes with Silver. The white hedgehog smiled at him before flicking away a glue stick he had been toying with, "Why are you even here? Why don't you play with someone your own size?"

"You're using that in an incredibly wrong context, Tails," he laughed, propping his boots onto the table, "And I can't help it!" he added the last part in a whisper, "You don't have many friends in this class."

"Did you have to state the obvious?" Tails growled under his breath, just loud enough for Silver to pick up on. He knew already that he wasn't that popular. One of the main reasons that would account for the reason he was hated in this class would be the fact that he was two grades above his age group. He was fourteen years old and learning at a tenth grade level, so many in his class automatically assumed he was a stuck up snob.

And then there was Silver, who wasn't _allowed _to assume such things. Treat Tails the way that everybody else in their class did and he'd be out on the streets in no time.

"If it were me, I'd rather someone kept reminding me," Silver stated sarcastically. There was a call from the back of the room, and the hedgehog turned to regard one of his other friends, but rejected the offer to come and sit next to them, partially because the invitation had not been extended to Tails, "I bet you're glad we've only got approximately twenty three minutes of this left, aye?"

"That's the understatement of the century," he chuckled crossing his arms and laying his head on them when a plastic bag was shoved onto his head. He let out an indignant yell as the culprit shoved it further over his shoulders and he had to claw to get the offending hands off him. He was vaguely aware of a brief scuffle outside the black expanse of the garbage bag before it was lifted from his head.

Silver had jumped over the table and tackled the culprit, pinning him down with his foot, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Tails was still trying to catch his breath, but when he looked over the table he realised that it wasn't even someone he could remember the name of. It probably started with an M or a D.

"All in good fun mate," he replied, trying to get up but Silver wouldn't release him.

"You _do _realise that he could sue you for that kind of treatment? Just because he's younger and smarter than you doesn't give you the right to act like a self-righteous prick!"

Tails fisted his hair and shook his head, "Just let it go, Silver."

He pressed his boot further into the bully's sternum, but that wouldn't stop him, "He goes to a high school like this one, he wouldn't have the money. And besides, he's just a mutant."

The fox stood up so fast that the desk in front of him fell down, crashing on top the person pinned to the floor, "I'm on garbage duty, that's what you're trying to say right?" His voice was filled with malice and an incredible amount of annoyance as he fetched the plastic bag he'd been suffocated with and made his way to the door. Even the teacher sitting in the corner didn't do a goddamn thing about it. Silver released his prisoner, figuring the desk that had toppled over him was enough to keep him busy for a while and followed Tails out the door.

He'd gotten long used to the abuse as a mutant, but for some reason he still couldn't fully control his emotions when something like that happened.

"Hey, Tails. Are you alright?" Silver murmured, trotting alongside Tails strides. They walked around campus languidly. Garbage duty was picking up rubbish in the general vicinity, and Tails wasn't sure if it was really his turn, but he needed to get out of that classroom.

"Fine," he replied sadly. In truth, jibes like that still hurt. And he wasn't as brave or justice orientated as Silver. Actually… Silver wasn't very justice-orientated. He was a pick-pocket after all (and damn good at it too) but there was just something about how other people treated others that irked him. He could understand Tails' predicament, he was a mutant as well.

"You'd 'ave thought we'd been used to it by now, huh?" he laughed and there was nervous humour in the tone.

"You don't have to deal with it," Tails retorted as he watched Silver extend his hand over the concrete quad. With no one around, the fox would have felt more at ease, but Silver was surrounded by many people that didn't like mutants, despised them even. He watched as his hand started to glow with tendrils of blue, and slowly, items from around the courtyard started to zoom towards Tails' garbage bag. Something that would have taken the remaining twenty minutes was finished in roughly thirty seconds, "You can just pretend to be normal."

"Despite that," Silver admitted, "I wouldn't be able to. You know that."

"Yeah."

They lived in a society where mutants were socially stigmatised, the definition of mutant being; having abilities and features beyond that of normal Mobian and human abilities and appearance. In Tails' case, it was having two tails and the brain of a super genius. In Silver's case, it was telekinesis; the preferred form of ESP because he wouldn't like having his white-quilled friend poking into his head every three seconds.

"If it was any place but Soleanna, right?"

"Not like I'd ever think of leaving," Tails said, an affectionate smile worming it's way onto his muzzle when he noticed a scrunched up piece of paper beneath his feet, "Look at this."

**Dr. Robotnik, better known as 'Eggman' is hosting the**

_Soleanna Grand Prix_

Extreme Gear Racing

**Interested? Sign up on the edge of Crisis City in Megalo Station.**

**Date for registrations ends December 7.**

**Get in quick to win…**

Everything about this flyer was completely bonkers. It was really fishy too.

Eggman was a horrible person. Ten years ago he had initiated the first mutant massacre where Tails had lost his parents, and many other innocent Mobians and humans had been killed as well. He would have continued if the Duke of Soleanna didn't realise exactly how many innocents were getting killed. He didn't understand the politics of it all, half of it led to pig-headed boorishness with no logical explanation and the worst part of it was that Eggman kept his position because he was the Duke's best friend. He was now the head of MeteoTech, with riches and more technology than he could ever want, but he hadn't made a public appearance in four years, due to an incident involving another mass killing spree.

Tails' best friend Sonic had been fighting Eggman for as long as he could remember. Sonic considered himself 'People's Choice' and fought for the rights of other mutants, but he hadn't had much to do lately because Eggman had been lying low. This was his grand scheme. There was definitely more to this than others would assume. He crinkled the flyer in his grasp, causing the paper to crunch.

**Get in quick to win**

**800,000,000 rings…**

That just screamed suspicious. Anyone with that amount of money was set for life, they'd be able to move out of Metal City (better known as Crisis City) and head to Station Square or Castle Town, have a better life. There _had _to be a catch.

"You gonna join?" Silver asked enthusiastically.

"Uh, no. I don't want to associate myself with anything The Fatman has planned; it just spells disaster." He had to admit that he'd always wanted to get revenge on Eggman for what he had done to his street. He'd been so blissfully happy before his parents died. That thought alone was enough to sap all the energy from the young fox's body and cause a mild burn behind his eyes.

"Look at that!" Silver said, pointing to the bottom of the paper.

…**and a congratulatory dinner with Eggman himself.**

Tails heartbeat pulsed beneath his skin.

_This is my chance!_

He could get revenge for what Eggman had done to him, what he had done to so many people that loved and cared for him, that he _still_ continued to do under the oblivious eye of the crown. But then again… there were so many competitors that were so much stronger, faster and skilled than him. Couple that with the determination to get the money and he was a goner. There had to be a simpler way to get Eggman to come out.

He scrunched up the paper in his fists, crushing it with his sneaker, "No."

"Willing to pass up free grub?" Silver said sarcastically.

"Not next to that clown, he might eat everything before I get the chance to," the fox muttered, managing a weak smile. Silver patted his back and in that instant the bell rung, and they were met with a cacophony of joyful cheers.

_"SCHOOLS OUT!"_

* * *

><p><em>Simple and Clean (Xylophone Remix) <em>by Utada Hikaru

* * *

><p>"I'll meet you back at the workshop okay?" Silver admitted reassuringly as he gazed up at the cemetery gates.<p>

"Sure. See you later. Send someone out on grocery run, it's Amy's turn to cook tonight."

"Really? Yes! No more fried charcoal from Knuckles!" he grinned before running off. Tails watched him hop over one of the river bridges and disappear out of sight and then turned his attention towards the cemetery. He always did this on a Friday, at least once during his school terms and he had been so busy or unwilling to go that he'd simply pushed the thought away and ignored it. He felt somewhat calmer today and wanted to speak to his parents.

Their actual bodies had been incinerated in the flames, but he'd created two crosses out of white metal, planted flowers and left them whenever he could afford them. Flowers in Crisis City were really, _really_ expensive and it was hard to get by already. As it was, he didn't have flowers with him right now, but he liked to think they took comfort in the fact that their son was still visiting and thinking of them.

"Hi Mom, Sad. I'm sorry it's been a while. Crisis City's still teetering on the edge of economic break down. I try not to get into it. Shadow's more interested in where all the government's money is going." He fingered a flower gently and sat on the ground before the crosses, resting his tired legs, "We took in someone new this time. I know you guys would scold me for making such a reckless decision, but he was just so… I don't know. I'm really glad that Silver came to us.

"I mean _financially _it's easier to live with other people here right? Crisis City is overpopulated, there isn't much room and if we're all paying for the same gas, electricity and water bill then it'd be easier than separate housing. It's what we did to your old Soldier Training Facility building, Dad. We turned it into a workshop. We hardly ever see each other except for at night time anyway- Whatever, I'm just rambling now. I'm keeping up my grades… well… it's complicated, but you don't really have to worry about them. School out though anyway, and I'm looking forward to just working with machines again.

"Hmm… you guys would probably scold me for doing something that's technically illegal. But so far I see nothing wrong morally about using Extreme Gear, they rake in a lot of ring and if you use them right you won't hurt anyone," Tails plucked at some grass and stared at the flowers weaved around his mother's grave, "but it's a different story when you're teaching Amy how to drive, yeah?" he chuckled quietly, noticing that it was getting dark and looking back at the crosses sadly, "Do _you _think that mutants are ever going to get the same rights as normal Mobians? What a future that would be…"

He got up and dusted off his jeans, taking a moment used to pick blades of grass from the denim to reminisce about the way that his mother and father used to sing him to sleep after a bad nightmare. He blew a kiss to the white crosses and turned around to head home.

"_I miss you."_

* * *

><p><em>Electric Romantics <em>by Short Stack

* * *

><p>Ah. Going home had to be one of the most peaceful times in the day for the young fox. There he could just work the night shift after he'd finished his homework (excluding today because he didn't have any), just him, a few customers and his machines. Wonderful machines that didn't speak, didn't yell, and most of all, didn't complain about how horribly he cooked or how he should take a bloody shower because he smelt of axel grease. But since it was Friday and he normally had fewer clients on Friday, he was bent on claiming the hammock in the library- after his shift- and settling down with one of his favourite books (probably Brent Weeks today) left to be undistur-<p>

"TAILS! SHADOW USED ALL THE HOT WATER AGAIN!" Or maybe not.

"I did _not _you pink twit, you just happened to choose _now _to take a shower when there was currently only cold water."

"You do not fool me with your psycho babble!"

Tails had just taken the staircase up from the workshop to drop his backpack off when he encountered Amy and Shadow. He was towelling his quills and Amy was decked out in a bathrobe, complete with fuzzy slippers, yelling at the stoic hedgehog at the top of her lungs. His body ached, like it usually did after he'd had a sluggish walk from school, plus the fact that he'd decided to take the long way to visit his parents, and he just didn't feel like dealing with this nonsense. It was around five and he only had half an hour before his shift started.

He still found it ironic that they turned to him, the youngest member of the Black Arms, to solve their inane problems.

Amy was fifteen years old, and Shadow believed he was around twenty, but at the moment they were acting like five year olds, "Amy, I'll turn on the hot water tank and you should have hot water in around twenty minutes. Shadow, there are some customers down there. Since they have motorbikes, I assume they're yours."

The building was actually in Shadow's name because Tails was under aged, but almost everything inside belonged to the fox. Since Tails' Extreme Gear service was illegal, Shadow covered that up by working a normal mechanic/electrician workshop but around eighty-seven percent of their income came from Extreme Gear maintenance, by far the fastest and most dangerous way to get around the city. One handling Extreme Gear before the police was immediately chased after, but they normally got away. There were special underground races where people would race, bet, and most likely die. There weren't many that dedicated their life to Extreme Gear who lived past twenty-five.

"Yeah," Shadow sighed impatiently turning back to Amy and doing a really rude hand gesture involving his tongue. Amy's face turned a red the colour of ripe strawberries, and she took of one of her slippers and threw it at Shadow's head. Unfortunately the black hedgehog had incredible perceptive abilities and ducked before it collided, hitting Tails square in the face.

He let out a shuddering groan as it fell to the ground and Amy screeched out her apologies, "Oh Tails, I am _so _sorry."

Tails turned from her to Shadow with a flat look, watching as the hedgehog tried to conceal a smirk. His nose twitched and he rubbed at it sorely before commenting dryly, "Your dinner better be bloody awesome or else you're going to find something incredibly unpleasant in your bed."

Amy scoffed, smiling lightly when there was an abrupt yell from upstairs, a slight pattering of feet and then a huge slam. Silver and Sonic were fighting to get down the stairs.

Their building consisted of half a sky scraper with a shaky structure. Tails' Workshop/Shadow's Garage provided the foundation, and the staircase leading up from that led onto the floor housing the living room, Shadow, Sonic and Knuckles' bedrooms plus one section of rooftop containing Tails' launch station for testing out his bigger projects, Amy's herb garden, a half pipe and a small make shift jungle gym created from scrap metal and rope, made especially for Silver. There was a spiral staircase that led onto the third floor which contained the biggest storage room/the guest bedroom, the kitchen, Amy's room and a bathroom. One level above that and then the structure started to become shaky, because the building had originally been a sky scraper but was knocked down during The Massacre, and housed a makeshift library, Tails' room and Shadow's art studio. Silver's room, above that, had been the attic but was now modified so that Silver could live there, which he felt annoyed about because you needed to go through his room to reach the highest point of the building, which happened to be a minuscule rooftop perch where you could see almost all of Soleanna.

The third floor had a huge gaping hole in it that Tails hadn't bothered to rebuild, and he'd simply put a railing on the edge of it, so they now had a balcony indoors, which Sonic, Silver and often himself tended to use instead of the stairs, normally just hopping from the railing and landing in the living room. They only did this when they were in a huge hurry because they'd fallen on the couch one too many times, and they weren't sure it could handle any more damage.

"God, you can be such a little bitch sometimes," Amy sighed, throwing her hands up.

"_I'm _a bitch?"

Silver and Sonic chose that moment to stick their heads over the balcony and yell, "Is dinner ready yet?"

"She hasn't even started!" Tails replied, watching with glee as the two hedgehog's shoulders sagged. The fox started trekking up the spiral staircase. He heard Sonic clomp away to do whatever he wanted while Silver continued yelling.

"Amy! Cook for one more, will you? Blaze is coming tonight!"

"You couldn't have told me your girlfriend was coming sooner?"

"She's _not _my girlfriend!"

Tails chuckled at the exchange, passing Silver as he made his way to the fourth floor. He shucked the curtains to the art studio away so that he could drop his things by the hammock hanging in the library, where most of the inhabitant still in school crammed during test periods. He was rifling through the shelves when he heard the rest of the conversation.

"I'm cooking for two more now! Cream's coming as well."

Tails blood ran cold when he heard the name of the seemingly sweet little rabbit. Cream had taken a page out of Amy's book in stalking-who-she-fancied and set her sights on him as soon as she turned ten. She'd taken to fawning over him and generally making him uncomfortable in the way that Amy used to for Sonic. Amy had grown out of that phase once she realised it wasn't working. (Thank Solaris.)

He ran down to the third level and yelled from the staircase, "Why did you invite her?"

"Ugh, because she's my best friend?" Amy stated it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Why are you picking on me? Silver gets to invite Blaze over whenever he wants."

"Yeah! But Silver and Blaze's lovey-dovey relationship is _mutual!_"

From the attic Silver gave an indignant yell that was muffled by the floors between them, but sounded something like, "I'm _not _in love with Blaze!"

"Yes you are!" Amy screeched.

"Yes you are!" Knuckles agreed from his room.

"Yep! It's true!" Sonic said from the living room.

"You guys suck!" he replied, stomping about the attic annoyed.

"Well, if you want me to cook then you're allowing me any guest I want, capishe?" Amy was PMSing. And when she PMS'd, her word was law. She turned back to the kitchen utensils and started working on what seemed to be spaghetti bolognese.

Tails let out an aggravated sigh and mimicked her annoying vocal tone, placing his hands on his hips, "God, you can be such a little bitch sometimes."

The pink hedgehog turned around slowly, one of her favourite kitchen knives in hand to face the fox, "Repeat. That. Again."

"Shit-!" he squeaked, bolting down the stairs as fast as possible with a murderous pink monster trailing behind him.

The young fox lived in a city on the edge of an economic meltdown. A psychotic madman was ruling his home instead of the Duke of Soleanna. He worked eighteen hours a week and studied the rest, in a trade that was not only dangerous, but illegal.

But as long as he could come home to screaming matches, missing underwear hunts and fights over the loudest stereo music, then he'd be alright.

Home _sweet _home.

Welcome to the life of Miles 'Tails' Prower.

* * *

><p><strong>(revised March 9<strong>**th**** 2012, Friday)**

Alright! What did you guys think?

**ღ**


	2. Deception in Progress

**domi|note: **Introducing, the main OC.

Thanks to **A Ugly faic**, **HalfWright**, **LordCooler**, **Pixelated Firefly**, **brave kid**, **Cross The Fox**, **L.L x C.C**, **TheFunGuy**, **Exploder**, **The Guy in the Background**, **Ficfan412**, **Angel-of-Energy**, **SmallSpek** and **WelshScot** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends. ~Shirley Maclaine<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Two<br>_.  
>"We see friends, smiles and <em>mistakes <em>waiting to happen, but we can't pinpoint."  
><em>...<br>Fever _by Adam Lambert

* * *

><p><strong>Hi! Welcome to the Black Arms Garage.<strong>

It's what the sign said, but Shadow was nothing but unhospitable to their guests. It was alright, because the regulars were used to his unfriendly behaviour. Tails dealt with their new clients because those that dealt with Shadow first often ended up never coming back. In truth, he'd started his shift earlier because Amy was still waving around a knife, and he maybe- _just maybe- _didn't feel like being impaled with a sharp object anytime soon.

He'd saving the weapon dodging for someone that deserved it… like Knuckles.

The young fox wrapped a bandanna around his head to keep his bangs out of the way while he worked and unhitched the chains from his belts, turning the 'Sorry, we're closed' sign to 'Yes, we're open!' and waiting for the customers that would soon start asking queries as to why their Gear didn't work. It was the part of the evening he both loved and hated.

The reason lie in the way that some people treated him. Shadow filtered through the Extreme Gear specialists; there were not many motor customers today, which meant that Shadow would need to handle the minor Extreme Gear problems this evening. That probably meant that he was going to be in a crabby mood.

The first of his customers for that evening just happened to be a purple chameleon that he was already associated with, he was very glad to see a familiar face, "Hi, Espio."

"Good afternoon, Miles," the chameleon nodded, placing his extreme gear onto the table top that the fox was sitting on. Espio was one of the close acquaintances he had that stilled called him 'Miles', "How goes the business?"

Tails sighed as a customer started yelling at Shadow, while the hedgehog just stood by with a natural indifference. Despite the loud and rowdy behaviour of the customer in front of him, the little mechanic knew Shadow could have fallen asleep right then and there. He tended to tune out of these kinds of conversations after a while. The Mobian himself was a possum, shady-looking, maybe thirty-two years old by the look of it. He was a new… probably. He was flailing his arms like a lunatic, making crude gestures and generally upsetting the rest of the customers. Tails knew why, but he didn't want to interfere. These kinds of confrontations made him sad.

"Same old, same old," he replied, turning back to the chameleon and picking up the Gear, inspecting it for any faults, shaking it a little, "What about you?"

He put down the gear and watched as Shadow rubbed his eyes. Sick of this behaviour from a customer, the black hedgehog replied with a smooth retort that left the possum red in the face; furious. Said man turned back to Tails and pointed a fat finger at him, yelling out, "You're an abomination that's bringing society down!"

He let out another huge sigh and forced on a fake smile, "Thanks for choosing us! Come back soon!" Sarcasm of course, but Tails refused to let those kinds of people get to him. There were some new customers that heard of Black Arms Garage, the _best _Extreme Gear maintenance garage in the city, but were unaware that the head mechanic for such a prestigious title was fourteen years old and _mutant. _They refused to be serviced by his kind, and thus made a fuss, forcing Shadow (who looked normal enough) to do the tougher services he was unaware how to proceed with.

Shadow was skilled with a wrench, but didn't know that much about aerodynamics, preferring to work with motor engines, skateboards, some electrical appliances, the _basics _of Extreme Gear, but never the complicated stuff that Tails specialised in. Unfortunately, the older mechanic didn't take shit from _anyone _and proceeded to throw anyone who showed intense signs of mutant discrimination the door. He didn't mind the people that disapproved of them, so long as they kept their opinions to themselves around him. After all, Shadow was a mutant himself.

The hedgehog made a slow gesture towards the door and the possum stomped out like an immature child, Shadow turning towards the rest of the waiting customers before saying, "Does anyone _else _share his opinion?"

Tails had to admit that he was a little disappointed when three people out of the crowd, which could not have been more than fifteen individuals, backtracked out of the door, but soon turned his attention back to the task at hand. There were other things he needed to attend to, rather than things that would make him mope later on, "You've a flat fuse in the control panel, that probably means it's somehow gotten wet or its short circuited. Though it's a little sloppy in there so whatever engine oils you've used to lubricate what ever grinding engine part is in there, I suggest you change to Air Gear grease, it's a lot more suited to these models. But apart from that, the main reason it isn't running properly is because you've dislodged the core air fuel fabricator, and it isn't getting the amount it needs to run properly."

"How do you do that?" Espio asked in fascination.

"What?" Tails asked, the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile.

"Just… know things? But that's beside the point. I didn't actually use any engine oils."

"What? Then…" Tails leant a little further back to grasp a tool box, grabbing a screw driver. After removing the panel and shifting aside some wires he found the short circuit. He pushed past that though, and crinkled his snout when he was met with a rather sweet, sickly odour, "Espio… there's… there's _jam _all over the energy panels of this gear."

"_What? _Oh…" the chameleon clenched his fists and muttered something along the lines of 'stupid bee' under his breath before he turned back to the fox, "How much will it take to fix it?"

"You mean _after _I swab off the sandwich-gone-wrong?" He snickered but Espio wasn't as amused by the joke as he was, "Around four thousand five hundred rings, give or take. It's something simple, so you can just send it over to Shadow."

"But that isn't the reason that I came here…" he took a brief moment to collect his thoughts. Espio was like that. It came with the profession. He was a member of GUN (otherwise known as Guardian Unit of Nations) and doing something undercover in Soleanna he wasn't meant to know about. All this information was discovered by Shadow over the course of Espio's visits, along with the fact that government officials were not meant to be indulging themselves by using illegal technology, "Do you know about the…"

He trailed off as the clicking of heels in the background started echoing throughout the garage, it was not a commonplace sound, an oddity in a place where he got used to drills and clanking noises. He knew what they meant though.

"_She's _back again," Shadow noted quietly as he reached around Tails to steal an air hose as well as a 14 air ratchet wrench, "Listen. Her gear is fine, but she's been pestering me about a paint job," he shoved a spray gun into Tails lap and took Espio's gear, "_you _handle it. She probably doesn't know the resident gunner around here, so try your hand at something girly."

"Hey!" Tails protested, "_You're _the taggist! Why do _I _have to do it?"

"Because I'm older, and I say so."

Tails rolled his eyes, pissed at Shadow's lax behaviour, "What were you saying Espio?"

But the chameleon wasn't listening anymore. Instead he was staring at the woman Shadow had been complaining about. Just as he had thought. The enigmatic hedgehog had been the subject of interest for one such white bat. She was beautiful and vibrant, very mysterious and proved different and unpredictable in every respect. Constantly coming in heels and pretending to be clumsy, pestering Shadow with metaphors and rhetorical questions. Tails hadn't actually made any contact with her himself, because she had only ever had minor Gear problems.

"I've gotta go," Espio sighed, "When will the gear be finished?"

"Give me five days."

"Done. See you then," he replied, giving the bat one last fleeting glance before exiting out of the store. The other's lingered in the few chairs available and watched the television screen mounted onto the wall near the electric appliance workshop, but he beckoned the bat over. The sultry woman was the one who initiated the conversation.

"Sunshine got sick of me, has he?" her voice was a nice, velvety alto that caressed the ears. He couldn't understand what was so irritating about this alluring woman.

"No! Of course not, he's just…"

"No need to lie to me, Foxy. I can tell when a man is at his limit…" she winked, an action that caused Tails' face to light on fire. He scratched the back of his head nervously and turned his attention to the board in her hands, a delicate looking piece of machinery.

"So w-what was it that you needed?" he stuttered, he didn't understand the innuendo in her words, just that he knew it was there. He'd spent enough time around Sonic, Amy and Knuckles to analyse the tone that they used whenever they were being crude, but they refused to explain them to him, and kept calling him 'delightfully innocent'.

"I don't want to be a bother, Sweetie, but I've seen Shadow's designs, his professional work and his street art. I want a board like that."

Tails smiled, nodding his head, "Have you gotten a design you want already?"

She nodded, leaning onto the edge of the workbench and dropping a complicated looking sketch before him, "He gave me a sketchbook sample last time I was here. Really the 'tortured artist' kind of guy, isn't he?"

"Yeah…" Tails smiled affectionately, "He'll do your job, but I'm not sure about the pricing."

"Don't worry about that, just about Sunshine."

"Are you sure? He hears you'll pay massive for one of his designs and he'll just keep raising it." He asked incredulously, "I mean, it's good for business and it's tough getting by and stuff but-" It was a rare day when a customer told him to forget about the price. Incredibly rare. Non-existent actually.

"For a cutie like you? Never," she grinned, ruffling his hair.

"Hey!" he laughed as he detached his hands, "My name is Tails."

"I'm Rouge."

"Nice to meet you, especially after you've gained rank as a regular customer. How long have you been using Extreme Gear?"

"Long enough to not look like a novice," she answered, pulling a piece of paper out of her pockets, "Have you heard about Eggman's new 'pet project'?"

She was holding up one of the flyers for the Extreme Gear competition. Tails frowned but nodded his head, "You wouldn't have any idea what he's doing, would you?"

The bat closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple as if she was getting a headache, "Word around the underground says that Eggman is trying to get Extreme Gear legalised."

"Really?"

"Just a rumour. But you never know with Eggman, right? I'll come back in three days to see if I've got a response. Take care, Darlin'," she wiggled her fingers at him and he waved at her, thoroughly confused about Shadow's attitude towards the woman. She was charismatic, friendly, beautiful. _Shadow _was the weird one.

Pondering these questions in his head, he beckoned the next customer closer, wondering where he'd last placed his cranking lamp.

* * *

><p><em>Sway Sway Baby! <em>by Short Stack

* * *

><p>Dinner in the household was always a messy affair, as one could probably guess. Tails and Shadow trekked up the stairs after locking up the garage, only for the little fox to be assaulted by a blur of tan brown fur.<p>

"Tails! It's been ages!" Cream exclaimed, burying her head into his neck. In the background, Amy made a little 'aww' sound that made Tails mentally gag.

"Ah-hi Cream," he patted her head awkwardly and gently tried to pry her hands away. She was persistent though. He wouldn't have minded… that much, but whatever perfume that she was using was burning his nose.

"Amy! Stop gawking at the happy couple and come!" Sonic hollered, "Some people are starving here."

"We're not a couple!" Tails protested, finally managing to pry the rabbit away enough so he could remove his dirty flannel.

"Aww, Tails, your little denial act is just too adorable," Cream swooned, prompting a raised eyebrow from the yellow kitsune. Cream had been raised in the same orphanage as Tails and Amy until she'd been reunited with her mother. Now they lived on the edge of Crisis City, much closer to Castle Town because they could afford it. Her mother worked a bakery, and got visits from the inhabitants of the Black Arms Garage often, especially Amy.

"Yeah, whatever you say…" he rasped, rolling his eyes. He went upstairs and got changed, returning in a pair of jeans and a tank top that wasn't stained and smelled of oil and gas, seating himself on the table opposite Silver and Blaze, in between Sonic and Shadow (a very dangerous position).

Three at the table were already in the middle of a conversation when he and Cream joined. "Yes you do!" Sonic protested against something Silver had said. Blaze, a beautiful lavender cat from New Town, seemed incredibly amused by the comment.

"No I don't!" Silver growled, red in the face, probably from embarrassment.

"Yes, you do! Shadow, back me up here!" the blue hedgehog demanded, turning to the red streaked mechanic who was reading at the table.

He received a very emotionless and instantaneous, "No."

"Oh c'mon! Tails. Buddy! What about you? You agree with me right?"

The fox in question scratched his temple, wondering what they were going on about, "What?"

Sonic rolled his amused green eyes, lifting himself so that he was kneeling on his chair, something Amy absolutely hated about his dining habits. He couldn't stay still for even five minutes, "Trust me Blaze, when you're not around, Silver acts like a ten year old kid. Three hours ago he was pushin' me down the stairs."

"I did not '_push' _you!" he replied, his voice rising an octave, "It was more like gentle encouragement to hurry up."

"I fell so hard, I almost broke my nose! Explain that!"

The white hedgehog grinned and rested his head on his hand, "Then you're just being awful clumsy today, aren't cha Sonic?"

"I'm telling you, Sweetheart," the blue hedgehog turned in Blaze's direction, "he only acts like this pansy-ass looser with," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "'morals' when you're around. Love struck fool as he is-" he didn't even get the rest of his sentence finished as he was attacked by a glowing blue toaster**(i)**.

"Silver!" Blaze scolded, rapping him lightly on the head as Sonic's head slammed into the table, dazed by the attack.

"Don't worry yourself, Princess," Shadow said tiredly as he flipped the page of the newspaper, "He deserved it."

"Stop calling me 'Princess'," Blaze replied quietly, patting Sonic lightly on the head. Blaze was the daughter of one of the higher members of The Royal Court. No one knew how she and Silver met, just that they had known each other for a long time before he arrived at Black Arms. It had taken her ages to trust them enough with her name, and because of her regal attire and attitude, Shadow had taken to calling her 'Princess' and the name had stuck, even with the rest of them.An odd fact about their relationship was that Blaze and Silver _also_ knew Shadow, but Shadow had forgotten who the both of them were until Silver came into their lives.

Knuckles joined them at the table looking a little bewildered, throwing a piece of paper onto the table and sitting next to Sonic. Tails recognised the coloured side of the paper instantly and snatched it, pocketing it, "What the _hell_, Tails."

"I've seen this too many times in one day. What's it to you? Ruining dinner like that. What of Amy's efforts?"

The echidna rolled his eyes, "I was giving it to Sonic."

"Yeah Tails, let me see what it is," Sonic tried to reach around Tails to grab the flyer, but the fox was refusing to give it up. He gave Tails a stern glare but the fox looked away, trying to distract himself with something else. It was no use, Sonic would have to resort to dirty tricks. He jabbed Tails in the stomach with two of his fingers making him shout in indignation. When that didn't work he started tickling him.

"S-stop it!" he demanded, gasping in between his laughter. Everyone else at the table seemed incredibly amused by this. Tails brought his legs up to kick Sonic in the gut, but in the process the hedgehog started to attack his stomach. He let out a sound that was the sick love child of laughing and choking before his chair gave out and he fell onto the floor. Sonic dived in after him and attempted to wrestle him to the ground in an attempt to get the flyer, but Tails had the awesome idea of crawling under Shadow's chair to escape the onslaught.

"I will _get _you, you skinny little twerp," Sonic clawed under Shadow's chair, instead prompting to get up and block Tails from crawling out from under the table. The fox managed though, getting up on Cream's end and facing Sonic, who was on the other side. When Sonic moved left, Tails moved right so that he was moving in the opposite direction, and stuck out his tongue.

"Sonic! Tails! _Sit down!_" Amy growled, and they immediately chose the seats closest too them, afraid of incurring Amy's wrath more.

A grin slipped onto his muzzle as the blue blur realised he wouldn't be getting his way, and with that, they started dinner. He admitted, it was a bit awkward sitting next to Cream though, what with her obvious advances, sliding her leg against his, rubbing shoulders. He had to keep on inching towards Silver, who was preoccupied speaking to Blaze. The chatter was light and friendly, and- thank the gods- didn't result in a food fight like so many of their dinners had. That _was _until Shadow finished his dinner, but stuck around to stare at Tails.

He was still in the middle of chewing when he noticed, but he held Shadow's gaze until he swallowed and inquired as to what he wanted, "Did you want something Shadow?"

He was quick and to the point with his answer, "It would be best to show Sonic the flyer," before he made his hasty exit downstairs.

"See? Shadow _did _agree with me," Sonic declared triumphantly.

"Not on the same subject," Silver clarified sullenly and Blaze patted him on the back.

"It's a flier for the race, isn't it?" Blaze turned to ask Tails, holding out her hand. And Tails had never denied Blaze anything, she wasn't stupid or irritating like his roommates were sometimes, she had an aura that demanded respect. He retrieved the paper and handed it over, she nodded.

"_'That'_ race?" Silver asked.

"What race?" Sonic retorted in really annoyed tone.

Tails waved them off. He didn't want to ruin a perfectly good evening discussing something about the Evil Omelette and shuffled downstairs to the living room to flip on a random channel. Cream followed him down, sitting as close to him as she could without seeming freakish, asking in a sweet tone, "Are you alright, Tails?"

He propped his feet onto one of the foot stools and crossed his arms over his chest, sinking lower into chair. Then he glanced at her, and their eyes met. They felt they could tell each other these kinds of things. Cream had lost her father in The Massacre too, and he wasn't even a mutant, "I'm fine. I just visited the cemetery today."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

There was a long, slightly awkward silence before he made a small little noise in the negative. They watched quietly after that, but kept the noise of the television loud enough to drown out the conversation drifting down from the balcony. Their friends joined them after they were done, proceeding to fight over the remote and sit on each other in an attempt to get the perfect couch position. He felt better then, despite having been sat on seven times, because none of them were mentioning the world outside their safe little hobble.

"So what do you want to do these holidays?" Amy asked everyone, excluding Knuckles and Shadow who had retired to their bedrooms before eleven. Shadow was anti-social and Knuckles still had work in the morning, "We still have a fair bit of time before Christmas."

Tails was almost nodding off by that point. He didn't want to fall asleep because anyone that fell asleep was subjected to horrible pranks in the morning. But since he was the first one on the couch, Cream, Amy and Silver were sprawled out on his legs and he wouldn't get up without disrupting them and the others leaning on them.

"I want to spend more time with Tails!" Cream declared happily, looking back to Tails for confirmation. "Isn't that right?"

Tails placed his hand over his eyes and mumbled something unintelligible. Sonic and Silver snickered under their breath, and he forced his eyes to open, unaware of what they could be doing (like stealing his shoes and hanging them from telephone wires).

"I think I'd like to learn free running," Blaze admitted, gaining shocked expressions from everyone but Tails who had started to nod off again.

"But whenever I offer to teach you, you just ignore me!" Silver whined. Silver was pretty skilled at the art, it was a delight to watch him get from one place to another. Tails had been thinking of learning it himself.

"Oh please," the cat batted the hedgehog's head playfully, "if I was going to hurt myself then you'd come in and mother me. I need it from someone that doesn't know how to fly."

"Where is all this coming from?" Silver asked, distressed and pulling on his quills.

"I saw a fox before, doing the stuff you normally do. But he _couldn't _fly."

"Foxes can fly," Sonic jerked his head in Tails' direction, but everyone could tell he was probably asleep.

"This one only had _one_ tail," she explained.

"We'll work on finding him tomorrow," Silver said absently, "I think I might know who you're talking about. For now…" he turned his attention towards Tails, a menacing smile spreading across his face.

* * *

><p><em>Teknopathic<em> of the Jet Set Radio Future Soundtrack

* * *

><p>He'd woken up covered in make up and donning one of Amy's bras. All in all, not the best way to wake up. After he'd cleaned up the mess and changed into something he could re-establish his dignity with, he had cereal and then headed off to one of his suppliers to get some more core engine units. He'd spent dawn bartering over the price and now he had three in his backpack as he hulked it down the street. He had been too tired to bring his Extreme Gear, and he wouldn't be in the mood for a chase if the police had found him.<p>

Unfortunately, the chase would be after him today.

He was lumbering past the mines to get back to the garage when guy-that-starts-with-M-or-D caught sight of him, but this time he wasn't alone. Completely aware that they would do something worse than shove a garbage bag over his head, he started running, and wouldn't you know it? They started to chase him down.

The core units in his bag were built to sustain rough housing, so he didn't much care for slamming himself against walls and sneaking into the cracks in alleyways so thin one would think they weren't meant to be there. While the bullies found an alternative route to get him, he took full advantage of his head start, slipping over and under gaps to reach the edge of Soleanna's mining companies, still looking for oil or precious minerals beneath the soil and concrete.

Silver had tried to teach him free running before, but he'd found it a waste of time and decided to give up on it. He regretted that now more than ever before, because core engine units were _incredibly _heavy without the reverse anti-gravitational polarity accompanied by Extreme Gears energy systems. And because of the weight, he couldn't fly.

"Come back here freak!"

He tipped over some garbage cans to slow them down, and was so focused on what was behind him that he didn't realise the impact until he was sprawled on the ground, moaning in pain. He'd crashed into someone.

His first instinct had been to look back at the bullies that were chasing him, and there they were, but they'd stopped for some strange reason, and were steadily moving backwards. His second instinct was to assume he had run into someone scary. But when he looked back all he saw was another fox, a little older than him, staring into the tar pit at a bunch of sinking rings. Oh shi-

The stranger must have been holding them, but when Tails collided into him he'd dropped them into the tar pit. Tar secreted from some of the mines and technically the stranger shouldn't have been there, but then again, neither should Tails.

"Oh gods."

He completely forgot about the bully and focused his attention on the fox. He had brown fur but black hair, and when he turned around to face Tails, he could see that he had deep blue eyes, "Thanks a lot, Mate, you've just rendered me homeless for the next six months."

"I-I really am sorry! Is there anything I can-?" Tails thought of anything he could do to help, but nothing came to mind… unless…

"Unless you got yerself 40,000 ring credits in that there backpack of yours, then there's nothing you could do for me," he replied sullenly, watching as the last of the rings disappeared into the endless expanse of black. Guilt ate at Tails' heart. Getting along in Crisis City was difficult. Those of the streets were mugged, abused and raped. It wasn't safe for anyone, let alone teenagers, to be sleeping out there.

"Um, no but-I-"

"Don't trouble yourself," he snapped sarcastically, trying to get away from him.

_I've just ruined someone's life._

The thought ate away at him, and he knew that he would be mulling this over for a long time if he didn't do something about it. He had just knocked someone's savings into a boiling pile of black goo.

"Wait! I want to help!"

"Oh no, no. You might run into someone carrying a baby." Damn. That was uncalled for.

But despite that, he wanted to persist, "Please! I'd like to assist in some way."

"Sounds like something an axe murderer would say," the older teenager murmured, further irritating Tails. If someone was this ungrateful for help, then he should have just left them… but he knew he would never forgive himself. Damn him and his guilty conscience! Someone like Shadow would have just left him there after he'd said, 'No thanks.'

"I'm not an axe murderer."

"_Also _something an axe murderer would say."

Goddamn fu- _Okay, deep breath. Calm down Tails. He's just an angsty teenager like yourself._

"Please, come to my home, at least until you can regain the money," he explained calmly.

The brown fox scoffed, eyes turning into slits when Tails grabbed his wrist to stop him from going away. He wore an awful lot of beaded hemp and leather bracelets. What a weird one, "Woah. Dinner and a movie first buddy."

Tails swore his claws were protracting. Maybe this guy wasn't worth his help, "You're so dramatic! I was just offering you free housing."

The mysterious fox shook his head a little, "I don't take well to living with strangers… people in general…"

_He's infuriating!_

"But you have nowhere else to go, yeah? To alleviate my guilty conscience, why don't you crash at my place, even for a few days while you figure out what to do?" Tails thought he was getting through to the stranger. There was a thinking expression that hadn't been on his face before hand.

"I guess I have no choice," he said, as if he was being given a prison sentence. "What were you doing just then, Short Stuff?" he asked, looking back the way Tails had come. The bullies weren't there any more.

"You're not exactly that much taller than me," Tails noted sourly.

"Details, details, answer my question would you?"

_A little pushy… gosh. Maybe taking this weirdo in was a mistake._

"Takin' this stuff back home, or were you going to assume there are severed heads in here?"

"Adding oil to the flames there. If you weren't doing anything of consequence, then come over to what was once my apartment. I need to grab my stuff. It won't take long, it's on the other end of Lethal Highway."

"Is that safe? I hear a lot of people are getting their bikes stolen there," Tails mused.

"Nothing's safe in Crisis City, that little pocket just happens to be a little worse. Watch your stuff, or you'll be coming home empty handed. I would know, I met a white hedgehog around here that tried to steal my wallet," the stranger mused. Tails laughed, intriguing the new comer, "What's so funny?"

"I think I might live with who you're speaking about," he explained between giggles. They'd started walking as far away from the mines as they could. If he was correct, the closest point of Lethal Highway to the Black Arms Garage would be Megalo Station.

"You live with him?"

"And four other people, excluding him and myself. Trust me, you're going to have a lot of fun," Tails assured but didn't miss how the stranger cringed at the comment.

"I'm not so sure about that…" He said it just loud enough so Tails could assume he wasn't meant to hear as they started to get onto the crossing for Lethal Highway.

"What's your name?"

"…Caleb Heartnet," he replied after some hesitance.

"Tails Prower."

He could just tell that this stranger was going to be a lot to handle, at least once he was gone, Tails would have a free conscience.

* * *

><p><em>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>In Metal, or Crisis, City, there was a small mouldy apartment block that I called 'home'. On the outside it looked like a shanty town reject, the inside looked even worse. The wallpapers on all of my apartment's walls where peeling off and the floor boards were barely able to support the weight of two averagely-weighted men. The furniture was substandard, the wood was flaky and the cloth was ragged.<p>

My Scottish side may be cheap and my Welsh an easy-going bum, but even they moaned at the mouldy surroundings, my Scotch begging for leather, even English leather, and my Welsh whimpering at the bare contents of my fridge.

Hmm, I haven't introduced myself. The name's Welshscot**(ii)**, not my real name, but I don't make life easy for people who take the piss out of my true name, so there. I'm one of those shaggy-haired, stubbled-chinned guys who look like they haven't seen a shower in months. It didn't help that I'm a half-mutant.

I looked normal enough, but underneath the bandages of my right arm, I had flaky, green dragon scales for skin, which kinda fit with the 'Welsh' part of my nickname. The 'Scot' comes from my abnormal ability of going murderously berserk off a pint of Scotch whiskey.

While ripping people apart is wrong, and downright disgusting, it helps me in my line of work. While I offer up psychiatry treatment for mutants who couldn't afford the fancy ones that only rich snobs could pay off, since psychology was the only decent grade I got in my A levels. I also give treatment in various other ways. It took no brains to pull a guy out of an Extreme Gear crash site; if there was a body that is, but not many people were smart enough, or skilled enough, to give the poor bastard even the smallest chance of living. It's not like they can go up to even the cheapest hospital and go, "Hey, my friend here just got hurt by competing in an illegal Extreme Gear race. Can you please help him?"

No, they need someone on site who can be strong enough to move rubble or carry an injured body, which I can achieve by sipping a little bit of Scotch, and then give medical treatment ASAP.

It was dangerous as Hell, as there were high chances you could get creamed by a high-speeding Gear, get busted by the cops or get shot by an anti-mutant gang banger. The pay, which I spent mostly on medical supplies because I have a god damn hero complex, was only just enough to get me by. Even though most of the food I got was cheaper than a Ryan-Air flight, my appliances kept breaking down so it went mouldy in a few days.

But enough about work, I decided to stop my first person rant and continue to wait for—

As my eyes stared at the screen of my laptop, a gift from a patient who I nursed both physically and mentally, I heard the small ping that signalled the arrival of an email from CJ. Once a cop, CJ was now one of the main hackers who arranged the underground races from behind the scenes and also the one who set up a private network where mutants could post blogs without being trolled or viral bullied by anti-mutants. She sent the passwords every day to the members of the site, so the anti-mutants, who sensuously didn't have lives, couldn't hack in and wreak havoc.

After signing in at an incredible speed, thanks to the wireless connection that was one of the only perks of living in this shit hole, I immediately browsed for my current favourite writer.

After I finished reading and put away my laptop, I heard the low creak of my front door, which I had locked and bolted. I quickly crouched behind the desk I had been sitting behind, pulling out a pistol and disengaging the safety. As I waited for the footsteps to sound, I began reaching for my pouch, where I kept a small flask of S—

Out of nowhere, a gloved hand grabbed my wrist just as I touched the trimming of my pouch. Startled, I wildly swung my armed gun until it pointed... at a burnt, fox-furred masked face. Breathing a sigh of relief, I lowered my weapon. "Bloody kilts, TD, I told you to knock before entering."

The masked man, who was wearing a large trench coat and had a small antenna attached to the top of his mask which laid between the two, burnt fox ears that were pretty much useless to him, said nothing. He released my wrist and walked to the front of my desk, where he sat on one of my cheap contraptions of wood that could barely pass off as a chair. I, myself, sat back in my desk chair, putting away my gun while I did so, and began looking at the black, plastic covered eye holes that covered the irises of the 'Tails Doll'.

A long time ago, TD was once a normal guy. He had been part of the personal guard that had protected the Duke of Soleanna, until the bloody massacre ten years ago. Eggman managed to talk the Duke into letting him borrow the Duke's guard trio for his 'little raid' as he called it. When the true nature of the mission came to light, TD refused to torch the houses of the mutants. This feeling was not shared by his team leader, so he had no problem following Eggman's order to deal with his rebellious squad mate.

His own team leader, and best friend, turned TD into a living Molotov, which was the first of many that blazed down the houses and lives of both mutants and humans. TD's other squad mate, enraged by his leader's act, turned the team-killer into a sack of misshapen mulch. The other team mate managed to get away, though it cost him his hands as a robot tried to rip him apart. He was currently underground, running a pro-mutant gang. He managed to find a metallic replacement for his hands, which earned him the nickname 'Metal Knuckles'.

The team leader, who had barely survived Metal Knuckles' beating, was placed in a project by Eggman, the maniac's first attempt at turning humans into metal monsters. It took many years, as Eggman decided to change the design once Sonic the Hedgehog stated causing trouble for him. In the end, the team leader looked like a metal copy of the blue speedster, thus the reason why he was called 'Metal Sonic'. Enraged that he had been created into someone's, Metal Sonic rebelled against Eggman and became a danger to both the police and the mutants, who were still the main targets of his abuse.

TD, on the other hand, had a more supernatural transformation. After three years of being declared dead, an urban legend emerged about a man who wore one of the skins of a massacre victim, stitched together by thread and kept alive by a crystal that was mounted on an antenna. The legends were varied, but they all agree that the 'Tails Doll' preyed on the people who abused the mutants, slicing his victims while humming a racer song, called 'Can you feel the sunshine?'.

How I met this boogie man was another story for another time.

It's time for the session.

Subject... 'Why can't I eat a Mars Bar?'


	3. Send in the Dogs

**domi|note:**

Thanks to **A Ugly faic**, **Spartan228Zakai**, **LordCooler**, **bravekid**, **ChaoCream**, **Exploder**, **cutelittlefreak**, **The Guy in the Background**, **Ficfan412**, **Spek of Smallness** and **superechidna** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair. ~Samuel Johnson<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Three  
><em>.  
>"The drama's a startin' so send in the dogs!"<br>_...  
>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>Underneath the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre, in the secret hideout of the Nocturnus gang, a red-haired man was lying on a grimy bed, gritting his teeth as he tried to suppress any signs of weakness or pain while I operated on his wrists.<p>

Standing behind me, her paw-like hand upon her pistol, was an orange-furred echidna mutant named Shade. Notorious for being one of the most professional assassins in Soleanna, Shade was the former lieutenant of the Nocturnus' last leader, Ix.

But when Ix tried to sell the gang out to Eggman to save his worthless hide, Shade turned on him. Though Shade was skilled, she would have been killed by Ix if this red-haired man, with his rusty iron fists, hadn't step in. Together they killed Ix and rebuilt the Nocturnus until it was one of the most powerful gangs in the city. Shade continued her role as the right hand lieutenant, and Metal Knuckles became the boss.

After sterilizing his left wrist one more time, I backed away from Metal Knuckles, who was now examining his new robotic hands. "I have finished attaching your nerves to the mechanism in the metal hand," I stated slowly, as I began to pack away my medical supplies and equipment. "Just remember, you won't be able to move the fingers for about three days. If you try and move them now, you'll just damage the nerves permanently."

Fully packed, I turned around to Metal Knuckles, who was smirking at his new, soon-to-be-movable hands. He turned his acid-green eyes to me and said, "Nice, very nice, Welsh-Doc." That was his nickname for me. It doesn't really bother me, only my real name does. Metal Knuckles jerked his head to Shade then me, the sign to give me my payment. Her free hand still touching her gun, Shade pulled out my pay, 700 rings, and handed it over, her mistrustful glare still firmly set upon my face.

Knowing that it was nothing personal, as Shade never truly trusted anyone, I ignored her stare and pocketed the rings.

A question was still gnawing at my mind, a question which I soon put to words. Turning to the gang leader, I asked, "M Knucks, why did you ask me to do the surgery? It's not that I don't like helping your gang out, but isn't Tikal your gang's medic? Shouldn't she be the one doing this?"

M Knucks frowned at this. He looked down at his new hands, clearly deep in thought, before suddenly muttering, "Aw, screw it. You've been helpin' us for years and I know your no squealer." Shade looked at her leader, her face filled with alarm and worry. Before she could say anything, Knucks stated, "Shade, this guy has been working with us for donkey's years. He may not be part of the gang, but he is sure as hell no cop lover. Besides, it does involve him, might as well give him a warning before it's too late."

Now slightly nervous and intrigued at the same time, I waited for the red head to spill the beans on a subject that had turned from a concerned query to a gang secret. "Tikal and her jelly friend, Chaos, are in hiding. They almost got caught in their apartment."

"A cop raid?" these were a usual occurrence in the business of an X-Gear garage or medic, hardly worth a big secret.

"Nope, it was one of Eggman's robot squads. And, according to Tikal's last message, they were lead by my dear ex-squad leader."

I don't gape, but my jaw was starting to droop a bit. Hearing that Eggman, who had been lying lower than dirt, was sending his robot hit squad out was bad enough. But hearing that Metal Sonic, the killer cyborg that attacked both mutants and humans alike, was working with the omelette? "That's crazy!" I shouted. "Why would Eggman put that much effort into capturing a medic? And why would Metal Sonic work for him? I thought he hated the omelette's guts!"

M-Knucks shrugged, "How should I know what that psycho thinks?"

"Do you mean Eggman or Metal Sonic?"

The red head gave a dry chuckle, "Smartass Scot. But that's not all. On the exact same day, the vigilante group, 'the Freedom Fighters' (the one that Sonic sometimes runs with), almost lost their medic, Doctor Quack, in a similar raid. Alongside that, we've been hearing that small time garages are being raided by robots, too."

Shade, who still looked at me with great distrust, chipped in, "This all started when Eggman announced his Grand Prix. He never seemed interested until now. We believe that he's trying to move in on the underground races, targeting anything involved from garages to medics."

"So far, he's been going after the little fish, either buying or bullying garages to work for him. The move on the medics is definitely a big step from his current pattern of operations."

This information was very easy to digest, but it didn't make it any sweeter. The police were always an annoyance, but having Eggman on your back was like having an axe over your head. Seeing that he was the head of MeteoTech, a mutant hater and maniac that had a finger in every legal pie, I was starting to dread the coming days. To try and distract myself, I continued to ask questions, rather hurriedly. "But I thought Eggman wanted it legalized! Why is he moving in now? And how can I be a target, I'm not as important or skilled as Quack or Tikal!"

Metal Knuckles shook his head, "Welsh-Doc, you're the only medic, besides Quack or Tikal, who can do more than dress bandages. You three are the only qualified doctors who treat mutants. If Eggman takes you all out, then mutant racers will have no choice but to go to doctors who are in Eggman's pay roll, legal or otherwise. And to answer your first two questions, Eggman's Grand Prix may have to be held in the underground. The Royal Court is still undecided in making Extreme Gears legal, and until they give the Duke their approval, Eggman can't hold a public tournament. So he must have decided to muscle in on the underground races in case he can't get the law passed."

Shade then added, "We still don't know his exact motives for hosting a tournament. Knowing his track record, it might be..." she trailed off, her eyes betraying a hint of worry.

"...another massacre..." Metal Knuckles didn't react to my statement, but like me, his heart must be turning stone cold.

After a long pause, I broke the uneasy silence. "Well, thanks for the warning. If Eggman has attack the FF then Sonic will soon know and the shit will start to hit the fan. I'm gonna see if I can bunker down with..."

But, speak of the devil, my phone rang, playing my favourite song, 'Team Chaotix'. I pulled out my phone and quickly read my new message. I shook my head, muttering, "This guy will be the death of me."

M-Knucks quickly understood who I was talking about, and a grin soon spread across his face. "Heh, Daemon been busy?"

I nodded as I began to leave, my phone in my pocket and equipment in my hand. "Yep, knew it would happen. He tends to go on an axe-murder spree after eating a Mars Bar."**(i)**

"How do you know it's an axe-murder spree?"

"He stole my axe."

The red head laughed, "Ha, sounds like Daemon! I take it he wants you to clean his mess up?"

"Yep, that's right. He tends to dump his victims in the Tar Pits, but his text says that he got interrupted by a fox. He says that he left the bits in a garbage can near the pits."

* * *

><p><em>Stay Alive <em>by Smile Empty Soul

* * *

><p>He waited now, outside of a shoddy building not unlike his own, but this one seemed to be in much worst shape. He was waiting for some mysterious bum he'd just ruined the life of, to come out with what remained of his belongings. Tails wasn't looking forward to taking in the stranger, but knew he wouldn't be alleviated of the guilt if he didn't at least try to make the situation better.<p>

The building he was leaning up against looked like the foundations were made out of paper, it was as if there was an almost visible lilt to the way that it stood upright and there was a chunk of wall missing out of one of the rooms to which something resembling steam was coming out.

_At least they have hot water, _Tails thought absently, patting his jeans down for dust. A cloud emerged from the denim, probably accumulated from walking through the mines (like he _shouldn't _have been doing- and in avoiding, could have prevented the loss of _forty-thousand_ rings). He leant against the wall near the door to the apartment blocks, wondering if he should have been a little worried that there was now screaming and ruckus in there that sounded like someone throwing chairs and tables about. A second later Caleb burst through the door like he was breaking the surface of water and Tails jumped back from it instinctively when it was abruptly slammed open again, probably by the human that had been throwing things about earlier.

"Don't you ever _dare_ come back, ya flea-bitten mongrel! You mutants are all the same!" He flipped the bird at Caleb, but the fox returned it with a flirtatious wave and a flying kiss. Tails laughed a little at the antic, he would never have the courage to be that audacious. Silver, Sonic and Knuckles maybe, but not himself. He wondered if he ever would before his eyes landed on Caleb. Before he was sporting a dirty old jacket and some ripped cargo pants. Now he was wearing three shirts over the one he had met him in, a satchel and a backpack, probably filled with clothes and belongings. He really _didn't _have a lot with him. Tails felt sorry for him… And then he remembered what the supposed land lord had said.

"You're a mutant?" He asked incredulously.

"I suppose you wouldn't be against that," Caleb replied, looking over Tails' shoulder at the moving appendages behind him. Tails shrugged and gently pointed in the direction of Black Arms Garage, Caleb following obediently. The fastest way to get there would be through Megalo Station, so they started climbing the ramparts to get there passing a bunch of teenagers holding onto extreme gear, some of which he recognised.

"So what are you?"

The brown fox didn't look particularly weird; there was nothing about him that would betray mutant nature. Maybe he had a were-form? Was it _his _time of the month?

"Guess." He replied in a monotone.

"Party-pooper."

He twisted his hand in a mock 'thank-you' gesture Tails had seen in those books that recycled information around the Earthian seventeen hundreds. French men normally coupled it with a deep bow but Caleb was just being sarcastic.

They walked in silence across the busy platforms of the station until they passed the stall Tails had been dreading seeing. It was where Eggman was signing up Extreme Gear racing participants. The line extended from one end of the station to the other, and partially blocked the tunnel he and Caleb were using to exit.

"-joining?" Tails shook himself out of his thoughts and tried to contemplate what Caleb had said.

"Wha?" Said the ever so literate mechanic, scratching his bangs.

"I said 'Are you joining?'" Caleb asked, a little irritation sneaking into his voice as he jerked his head at the stall. That was weird; the strange one was starting the conversation.

"Why would I?" Tails replied.

"Because you're a mechanic." _Please don't tell me he can use telepathy. Silver's bad enough._

"How did you know I was a mechanic?"

"I didn't, but you reek of oil, so I thought it was a fair bet. I 'eard that it's gaining attention from Extreme Gear users outside of Soleanna."

"Really?" Tails asked, disinterested.

Caleb nodded, "Said a ship from some place foreign was gunned down a few days ago."

"Mm." Tails nodded; a little disinterested. He was digging up a subject that he didn't want to think about. He'd heard of the strange ship in the news, but hadn't thought much of it.

"They say it was the Babylon Rogues."

Tails' eyes widened, but he shook the thought away, "Doubt it."

Caleb scoffed, as if to say, 'Fine. Be that way'.

The yellow fox growled and crossed his arms over his chest, darting between the crowds towards the stairwell that would lead them out of Megalo Station. Caleb was swift on his heels, taking in his surroundings with a keen eye. It was a little hard to find Black Arms if you didn't know what you were looking for. They climbed the stairs in silence, and were met with soft greetings when they passed the doors.

Shadow passed them on the way to reach the couch and eyed the new guy, scoffing, "What? We just got used to the flying white pest, and now you're bringing in more strays? You must have done something pretty bad."

"He pushed my savings into a vat of boiling tar. What's it to ya, tall, dark and emo?" Caleb pushed past Tails to tell Shadow off, only to reel him back in when the hedgehog's fists clenched.

"Okay! Rule number one. Do _not _aggravate Shadow!" Tails advised, pushing the fox towards the staircase. Five seconds into the tour and he'd already irritated someone, he _knew _this was going to be hard.

Caleb's eyes flashed with something that looked like recognition, "Did you just say _'Shadow'?_"

He was proven right five seconds later.

"Who just told off Shadow?" Silver yelled, bounding down the stairs from the fourth floor, only to claw back up when Caleb launched himself at the white hedgehog, screeching in anger, "I like them already!"

"You white _prick! _Give me back the wallet you stole!" The mysterious new fox demanded, following him up the stairs. Tails rolled his eyes, picking up the gear that he had dropped. Just because he owed Caleb shelter, doesn't mean he was going to make it easy on him. And Silver; he had _stolen _something despite telling everyone he had wiped his slate clean.

"Ah! I take it back! I take it back!" Silver yelled.

He trudged up the fourth floor and hurled Caleb's belongings to the ground, smirking evilly at the two wrestling on the ground, "Congrats Silver. Meet your new room-mate."

"What?" Both of them screeched in tandem.

"He'll be taking the bunk in your room. Or do I have to put it in simpler terms for you?"

"This is-!" Caleb's eyes narrowed when his pocket beeped. He fished out his cell and got up off the floor, walking a little ways away to answer, "I've got a job to do. I'll take a rain-check on that tour." He discarded the extra shirts he was wearing and stuffed them into one of the bags that Tails had been carrying.

"Aww, so soon?" Silver growled sarcastically, taking an immediate dislike to the stranger. That's _fantastic._

Tails sighed irritatingly, "I'll have a key done by the time that you come back… maybe."

Both Silver and Tails followed Caleb down to the third floor and then watched him make his way out of the garage before the hedgehog took the mechanic by the shoulders and shook him for good measure, "Why have you _condemned _us?"

"What?" he growled.

"That guy works for Rapidi Solis **(ii)**. The same delivery company that Sonic and I do! He's the most annoying, sarcastic, pratty little bitch you could ever encounter! Do you _live_ to ruin my life?"

"You're starting to sound as dramatic as him." Tails dead-panned, making Silver huff and push him aside, annoyed.

"I hate you."

"Much obliged," Tails patted Silver's head and headed down to the bottom floor.

* * *

><p><em>Fly like a butterfly <em>on JSRF Soundtrack

* * *

><p>He fell asleep on the couch again, realised it was becoming a habit and decided that he should stop it, especially after noticing that someone had put mascara on him and replaced his shoelaces with red liquorice. Honestly, did his friends have nothing <em>else <em>to do but prank him while he slept? He heaved in a huge sigh and realised that his hand was dipped into a bowl of warm water… Oh shi-

After an impromptu trip to the bathroom, he rounded up Sonic and decided to make a second trip to his suppliers, receiving a text saying that his next solar modules were in. Solar modules were a little heavier than core modules, and needed more people to drag them across the city. So gathering up their Extreme Gear they started on their journey to the docks in New City, where they would find their supplier.

"You wouldn't happen to know why Silver is in such a bad mood today, would you Tails?" Sonic asked as they made their way out of the garage and threw their Extreme Gear to the ground.

"I got him a new room-mate."

"What? Without alerting me?" Sonic asked in mock-hurt.

"The building might belong to Shadow, but I'm the owner in everything but name. And I definitely don't answer to you," Tails grinned cheekily, hopping onto his board and speeding up in a silent challenge for Sonic to catch up.

"Hey!"

Taking the less obvious routes to The Docks, they snuck into the underground water tunnels, taking their time to travel in tubes, the euphoria of travelling upside down and right-side up thrilling in their veins. Their joyous shouts and challenging calls echoed through the darkness as they emerged into the light. They were in good moods when they arrived at the docks, their Extreme Gear changing back into their silver carry-on cases so they wouldn't look as suspicious when encountering authority. They hid them in their backpacks while looking around for their supplier.

"Vector's got to be around here somewhere."

None of the Chaotix really felt like they were breaking the rules when they dealt with Extreme Gear on the side lines. Chaotix was the name of a GUN squad made up of Espio, Vector and part-time agent Mighty. They were also taking on a junior member at this time (said junior member was probably the reason Espio's board was covered with jam). Vector was one of their suppliers, smuggling Extreme Gear parts into the city on the sidelines because they made for a huge amount of cash… unless he was bartering with Sonic. Sonic could niggle down a price to almost fifty percent half the time because he was just so god-damn persistent.

They spotted the green crocodile at the edge of the docks, carrying a backpack similar to theirs. And Tails pretty much tuned out throughout the rest of the conversation, watching a fish swim around the doc supports. When he finally decided to pay more attention, both of them were frowning, but Tails knew how this normally worked out; both of them were secretly grinning on the inside. They managed to get six sets of solar modules for him to work with, and were soon on their way back to the garage so that Tails could play with his new toys.

They had to take a different route this time because there was not enough room for error inside the tunnels when their back packs were full. Taking the discreet route back into Crisis City, they shifted through the back lots of most of the beautiful housing, dodging the weary eye of the police looking for rowdy teenagers, onto an abandoned Extreme Gear track.

"Is the reason why you don't want to be associated with the Extreme Gear race is because you're afraid we're going to join?" Sonic asked him, completely out of the blue as they made their way through the track, searching for the fastest route to home.

"Yeah…" Tails admitted, "Sonic… there are different reasons as to why everyone wants to enter that competition, and I can think of several for myself alone."

"Does that mean you're joining?" the fox felt a weird sense of déjà vu but he shook it aside to avoid an air pocket in the course.

"That's not my point!"

"So you _are _joining."

Tails stomped on his board angrily, accidentally hitting the thruster device and zooming forward comically. Sonic was still guffawing when he caught up to Tails who was still disorientated by the speed boost. He was sick of everyone twisting his words around. When Sonic was finished laughing he noted that Tails was gliding along silently, not in the best mood any more. After a long unpleasant silence he muttered, just loud enough for Sonic to hear, "I _want _to."

"I hear you there, Lil' Buddy," Sonic nodded.

"But _everyone _wants to…" The mechanic moaned.

"That's the point of a competition, Tails," Sonic explained it like Tails couldn't contemplate it, earning him a hard glare in the process. He was about to retort when they were hit with a wind so strong it felt like they'd slammed into a solid wall. The fox fell off his air transport, the gravitational pull towards the board was not enough and he was separated from the plank of metal like Autumn leaves from a tree.

The impact with the ground jolted his limbs, scratching along his fur as he fell with a cloud of red dust. His eyes tried to zero in on whatever had caused the wind wall. He stopped, stunted at what he saw in front of him. It was a half pipe _made _from the object that had gone so fast it left wake made out of _air _behind it. This was something Tails had only seen by the _best _Extreme Gear users in Solian history.

"Yes! See ya later losers!" The voice was unfamiliar to Tails, it sounded young but rather raspy and it came from the green feathered rider that had created the turbulence.

Three seconds later a dash of violet passed him. Five and another dash of grey made its way past. He was met with a haunting laugh and an insult that sounded something like, "Ha! _Amateurs_."

Sonic had fallen off his board too, but met with the challenge he retrieved his board and was soon after the mysterious trio. Tails knew this was bad news. The only person alive that he'd ever seen create turbulence was Shadow, and soon after he'd had a gear malfunction and almost gotten severely injured. It probably wasn't wise to go after a rider that probably had a lot more experience with the board than him, but Sonic didn't care about that. He prided himself on being the fastest thing in Soleanna.

Unnerved by what might happen to Sonic and the solar modules, Tails gathered up his gear and threw it to the ground, hopping on top of it, trying to catch up. He didn't much care for Sonic's competitive streak, but he would _not _let those solar modules be harmed!

In the back of his mind, Tails wondered when his priorities had become so screwed up.

He hit the throttle purposefully this time, looking for a ramp he could gain some air with. Swerving too and fro, he looked down to skim his eyes across his fuel meter, annoyed to note that there was only half a tank left. Steadying himself he smirked as Sonic came into view in the distance, surprisingly enough, ahead of the purple and grey bodies, but far, far behind the green one.

"_Sonic!"_ He screeched, trying to grab the Blue Blur's attention. Gaining momentum, he flipped over a broken ramp to gain a little more air, readjusting his footing so that his heel was just shy of hitting the thrusters again. He actually managed to catch the two mysterious rider's attentions while their leader seemed too preoccupied in beating Sonic.

Pushing himself harder, he moved over the rough terrain, and pulled at the board's side to turn a rough corner, cutting the edge of the track enough to tail behind the two riders. Tails had been riding for six years now, but these strangers must have trained longer_and _harder too to reach this level of skill. He was having so much trouble catching up as it was.

"Give it up, Shortie!" The violet rider turned back at him, and it became obvious to him now that they were all birds. That would have explained their incredible air movement and their supernatural grace with the boards, "There's no way that you can beat us."

Anger flared inside him as he met the cold ice eyes of the bird, a mocking smile adorn her beak. He turned to the other hulking grey rider, a similar kind of expression on his face as well. They were definitely intimidating, but Tails had learnt to stand up to diversity during his time in Crisis City, "I'm not _trying _to beat you."

He watched her eyes go widen in confusion, as she twisted her board to the side and came to a halt. The grey rider followed at the same time, but Tails didn't have time to ask them what was wrong, he needed to stop Sonic from ruining the modules. He sped up to the blue hedgehog, trying to get in hearing range.

"Sonic!"

The green rider ahead of Sonic looked back, and even in the distance, his smirk was still clear. He brought out what looked like a pair of feathered fans and cut them across the air like you would an axe, releasing visible arcs of cutting wind. They hit the bottom of Sonic's board and sent him backwards, tipping the board over and breaking him away from the gravitational pull. He hit the ground with the top of his spine, and then tumbled into a ball until he fell, face first into the dirt.

Tails curved his Extreme Gear and stumbled off the board himself, bending to help Sonic get up. Once the hedgehog had managed his footing Tails ripped the backpack from him and checked that the solar modules were alright, "I could have broken my neck, and the first thing you look at is your little tech toys?"

The fox released a sigh and wiped his brow down, "Whew, only one of them is broken."

Sonic and Tails burst into laughter, completely forgetting the commotion they had a little while ago until they were approached by the strangers. The green bird had been filled with euphoria beforehand, but now approached the two with caution, "It is _not _cool to just drop out of a race like that."

"Whoa, whoa," Sonic placed both of his hands up, palms facing towards the stranger, "What are you being so serious about?"

The violet bird strode forward, annoyed, "Jet, it wasn't an official race." The green bird's shoulders slumped and he cradled his hung head in his hands, squeezing his temple as if an oncoming headache was brewing a storm in his cranium.

"Ya mean there _wasn't _any cash?" The grey one boomed, placing his massive hands over his head in panic.

"I _told _you it was too fishy!" The female stalked up to the leader, pointing one of her gloved fingers at him, "Two individuals on a race course that looks like it hasn't been maintained in years? But you didn't listen to me… _again!_"

"What was I supposed to do? We're running out of options, Wave! And your 'logical thinking' has proven to be pretty fucking _useless _so far." He snarled, straightening his back so that he met her eyes.

"_Hey,"_ Sonic interjected, stepping in between the two, "there isn't any reason to be rude to a lady."

"Screw off, Blue Boy," Jet growled, grabbing Sonic's shoulder and pushing him aside so that he could see Wave again. Tails was appalled at the behaviour, and turned to Wave to see if she would approve of Sonic's chivalry.

Unfortunately, the rider just crossed her arms over her chest, "This doesn't concern you any more."

"Yeah!" The still unnamed grey one declared, "You can scram now."

"What? No!" Tails replied, stepping into the thick of the fight, "I demand an explanation as to why my solar modules were destroyed."

"What is a ten-year-old doing with solar modules?" the female asked, quirking a brow curiously.

"I'm _fourteen,_" Tails hissed between his teeth, trying to calm himself down, "And, you guys owe me cash, so I suppose you'd better get to explaining."

The female stormed up to him and growled, meeting his eyes, "We don't owe you _anything_ you two-tailed-twat."

"Aw, come of it!" Tails snarled, meeting the female's hiss for hiss, eyes turning cold and his stance turning threatening. This just _hadn't _been his day, "Your leader slammed my friend into the ground."

"Your friend better get a better grip on his board then, huh?" she smiled sarcastically, ruffling his hair and then flicking him in the nose. He stumbled back, clutching his throbbing nose while he glared daggers at the girl.

The grey bird started guffawing, and the leader turned back on him and muttered, "Shut up, Storm."

"Tails, let's just go." Sonic sighed, placing his hand on Tails back and nudging him in the direction of home. The riders ignored them and started arguing amongst themselves again as if the encounter hadn't even happened at all. The encounter with the mysterious riders had put them in a worst mood than one morning last week when he had woken up wearing a Justin Bieber T-shirt.

That was a pretty bad day.

* * *

><p><em>Dirty Little Secret <em>by All American Rejects

* * *

><p>Silver came back from his latest delivery session to find Amy arguing with Caleb at the door. Well, he wasn't so much 'arguing' as taking her abuse, he wasn't sure why though. When the fox caught sight of the white hedgehog he sighed and pointed at him.<p>

"There, it's Silver. Hey! Come over here and tell this crazy broad that I'm yer new room-mate," he demanded. Silver cocked his head, looking as innocent as possible.

"I have absolutely no idea what you mean."

"Ha!" Amy said, pointing her finger at the new comer's face, "I knew you were lying!"

"I-I'm sorry," Silver smirked, "Who are you?"

The reply aggravated the fox, bouncing him off his position from the wall when he noticed Tails and Sonic appear in the distance. Calming soon enough and sticking his tongue out at Amy when Tails told Caleb to go inside. Tails pretended to not notice how Caleb's sneaker ran into the back of Silver's knee, earning a sharp jab in the kidneys for his juvenile behaviour.

"Tails, you couldn't be insinuating that this asshole is really going to start living with us?" Amy jabbed her finger in Caleb's general direction.

"Said 'asshole' is still in direct hearing range," he snapped. It was like he always had an insult or sarcastic comment at the ready. Amy responded to his jibe by kicking him in the shin, earning an echoed _'dammit' _as he nursed the (what was probably) bruised appendage.

Tails shrugged, "You've been living with Shadow for a bit now, what's another one?"

"'Assholes' you mean?" Sonic murmured, looking Caleb up and down with a sceptical eye. He didn't seem too approving of their new guest either. Tails could understand why, Caleb wasn't being the most accommodating guest. Was that because he was still incredibly annoyed at this major change, or was he just a naturally irritating person? He hoped it was the former.

"_Fuck_ this," Caleb growled, "Can someone show me where I'm gonna crash?" He looked around at the very unimpressed group of friends, watching him with varying amounts of disgust and hatred. His eyebrows crinkled together as he realised that he wasn't going to get anywhere swearing and carrying on the way he was. He faced Tails and heaved in a huge sigh, "Could you _please_, direct me to my current sleeping accommodations… Prower?"

Tails rolled his eyes. Even when he wasn't attempting to be rude, the older fox's tone sounded sarcastic and mean _just_ because Tails knew he wasn't being sincere. Despite that fact, the mechanic knew he couldn't disregard Caleb's request just because he was being petty. He forced him up the stairs into Silver's room where he made his home on the top bunk.

"Ah, Silver sleeps on the top-" Tails started, before he realised he was not trying to lay claim to the mattress.

Caleb rummaged around the pillows for a bit, his tongue jutting out a little as if in deep conversation. A few seconds later a quiet 'aha!' escaped his lips as he extracted a small black wallet from deep within the folds, pulling out eight platinum rings from the folds.

"Hey! That's-" Tails began before Caleb rolled his eyes and tossed him the wallet. The mechanic opened it to find Caleb's student ID inside, followed by his Extreme Gear License, his library card, his Rapidi Solis Delivery Service Card and other things depicting Caleb's identity. The looked fishy. Tails cooled down after that, but still felt a little pissed at Silver and a little annoyed at himself for doubting the stranger. It wasn't exactly the best feeling having to be proven wrong by a prick with a stick thirty centimetres long lodged into his ass.

He jumped down from the bunk and snatched the wallet out of Tails hand with a great amount of skill and virility, jumping onto the bottom bunk. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm and eyed the door behind Tails. He wasn't too oblivious towards body language and started to make his way towards the door. In the back of his mind, Tails had expected even a _small _thank you, but he never received one. He met Silver at the door and he wedged the door open to let the hedgehog in, expecting to hear some vicious retort. To his amazement, Caleb was already fast asleep.

_What a weirdo, sleeping at 4:30 pm._

Silver scowled at him on the way past and Tails returned the expression with a hiss of his own, going down to the workshop to work on his commissions. He thrashed the tools about harshly, alarming Shadow who was at the garage entrance smoking or something. Business was normally busy on Saturdays but the stream of customers had depleted because of the Extreme Gear news. All through the afternoon he worked, until sunset when there was a bang at the huge garage entrance.

"Tails!" Shadow called, his voice echoing against the walls, "We've got customers with advanced tech."

"Tell 'em we're not taking anymore customers!" he yelled back, muttering the last bit, "They've just _gotta_ arrive three seconds before closing time," he slammed his wrench down on the cool metal surface of his working bench, wanting to head upstairs and eat something.

"They're being persistent."

He let out an aggravated growl and stomped towards the entrance to tell off the customers when a familiar, angry screech assaulted his ears.

"Y'all claim to be the _best _Extreme Gear Mechanics in the city, so what's stoppin' you from helpin' us?"

Shadow's deep voice was the answer, and treated with an extra dose of sarcasm, "The fact that you're interrupting my soap operas. The Bold and the Beautiful is on in a bit, you know that right?"

"Listen Smart Ass, we've had a pretty _fucked up _week. Last week we were rendered homeless and now we're strappin' for cash. We _need _these boards fixed. We don't even need your help really, we've just gotta use the tools."

The hedgehog released a yawn and said, "Damn, I'm missing the opening credits."

"Fuck it, _really?_" the voice replied sarcastically.

"Hey!" Tails growled, reaching the edge of the garage when he realised who Shadow was arguing with, "Snap."

The fox's eyes met with familiar ice blues, staring at the same birds that had broken down his solar modules. The hulking grey man was still growling at Shadow, but the other two, their leader and the snarky female, had their eyes locked on him, their expressions the sick love child of shock and hatred.

"Oh, not you again."

* * *

><p><em>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>On a bright and sunny day, two individuals were walking in the shadows of the Dock's warehouses. Stopping to peep around a corner, the leader of the duo was none other than me, Welshscot. I was wearing my baggy clothes, my hair was still matted and my chin was as thick as ever thick with stubble. ..<p>

A twig snapped, causing my bandaged hand to spring to my hoisted gun, which was right next to my hipflask of Whiskey. The tall, trench-coated 'man' behind me tensed, but nothing more. As we realised it was a false alarm, TD relaxed, his burnt, fox-fur mask still hiding any other signs of emotion.

I had managed to find the killer, after the warning I had received from his old squad-mate, Metal Knuckles. When I asked if I could stay with him, he nodded, for talking was difficult for him. The only times he did speak were moments that involved savage murder and bloodshed.

We kept on the move, never stopping in one place, and generally sticking to the shadows. He hadn't killed anyone yet, but I bet we would soon come across a group of punks, beating up some poor mutant whose only crime was walking on the opposite side of the road.

From our shadowy corner, we quickly scurried to the side door of warehouse four, which was as rotten and mouldy as all the other stacks of wood. Though I was supposed to be in hiding, my supply of medicine was almost depleted. Because I was useless as a medic if I didn't have the correct medicines, and because breaking into a hospital was very, very difficult, I had decided to collect one last shipment from my contact at the Docks before vanishing with TD.

The Docks are the only place to get Extreme Gear parts and medical supplies in Soleanna, unless you could sneak into the Black Market, or at least it's the safest place for mutants to get them. My personal contact came from Downunda. The Coconut Crew, were the ones who supplied me. Seeing as half of them were mutants, and because I was good friends with General Tabby, they were happy to send the odd shipment my way...for a small price, of course.

Remembering that Tabby had said that he was sending someone new, I slowly pushed open the side door, which made a low creak as it swung inwards. The warehouse's interior was huge, dark and empty. The only light that broke darkness's total control was the random cracks and spaces in the roof and walls and the damaged, sparking fuse box that was hanging off the wall near the main entrance.

The moment we were inside, we saw our contact, plus her 'friendly' entourage. On the floor, her back pressed against the rotting wall that was far in front of me, was a teenage racoon, wearing a green and white tube top and black shorts, which were branded with the Coconut Crew's logo. Her orange and brown fur was damp, as if she had been swimming, and she was clutching a small rucksack, her eyes full of fear and dread.

Surrounding her were five men, who, by their ragged clothing and wacked out hair styles, were obviously street punks. Their backs turned to me, I couldn't tell if they were armed or not. But when one of the punks laughed, "Let's have some fun with this mutant freak," I ignored all sense of caution.

While TD stood stock still in the doorway, I charged at the laughing and somewhat deaf punks. My arm brushed the flask on my belt, a flask which I did not need. Before finally realising my presence, I managed to launch a front kick straight into a punks arse, just as he began to bend over the raccoon. Taken by surprise, the punk's head soon crash into the rotting planks on the walls. As my foot landed onto the ground, I swung my left elbow into the jaw of a punk on my left.

The raccoon, seeing her chance at escape, scrambled to her feet and lunged at the gap where a punk had once been standing, who was currently massaging his jaw. Another punk tried to grab her, his fingers stretching for her tail, but my feet soon stamped upon his digits.

I took a step back, my fists raised and ready. Behind me, I heard the girl's frantic breaths. As the three punks tried to get to their feet, one of the standing ones on my right pulled out a nailed baseball bat. Instinctively, I raised my bandaged right arm. The hard nails soon collided with my arm, tearing at my bandages. But I felt no pain and as quick as a flash, I unleashed a side kick into the punk's exposed gut. Dropping to the floor, the punk caught a glimpse of sunlight, which reflected off the emerald green scales of my bandage-less right arm.

The last punk standing cried, "He's a freak too!" before I could move towards him, the punk pulled out a pistol and aimed it at my head. "Eat this, freak!"

_BANG._

I stopped, my eyes wide with surprise. I took a couple of steps back, which brought me to the scared raccoon, who seemed to have enough courage to stay. My head tilted downwards, my grey eyes fixed upon the floor, and shook my head. "You guys are fucked..."

The punk with a gun stared, as a masked head began to slowly tilt down. When his face was level, TD raised his right hand and pulled out the bullet that was lodged into his skull. Before the piece of lead could hit the ground, the trench coated man was raising the punk by the throat. While the punk continued to squirm, a black, bloody stitch fell onto the floor; and a low, haunting growl emitted from TD's stitch-less mouth.

_Can you see...? The sun is shinin' on me..._

Knowing what was coming, I turned round to the girl, who had dropped the rucksack and was now gazing, horrified, at TD. "Listen, cover your ears and close your eyes, quickly." As I said this, the Tails Doll straightened his left arm, and a bloody axe slipped out of his sleeve and into his hand.

When the girl didn't respond, I practically yelled at her, "Cover your ears, NOW!" But before she took my warning, the screams began. I couldn't see what she was now seeing, but I heard a loud splattering sound that could only be of blood. Finally taking my hint, the girl screwed up her eyes and covered her ears, whilst shaking and whimpering.

When the screams finally ended, I turned around to see what I was expecting to see, making it no less pretty. The punks were all dead, hacked to pieces like fresh kindling for the fire. TD was just standing there with his axe his hand, blood all over his trench coat.

While he bent down to pick up his stitching, I carefully turned the girl away from this grizzly scene. She did not object, for all she moved where her eye and hands, so I quickly asked, "Are you the one Tabby told me about?" she nodded. "What's your name?"

"Marine..." she whispered, her eyes trying to resist looking round. "I'm the mechanic for one the Royal Court member's daughter, Duchess Blaze," she shook her head. "The Colonel and I were delivering..." she paused.

"...Medical supplies for me, for Welshscot?"

Her eyes shone with relief. "Really? That's ripper!" She then went into a hurried explanation. "Me and the Colonel were just off the docks when we were ambushed by a couple of robots. They kept asking, 'where is Scotwelsh'..." A tick appeared on my brow. Can't they get my name right? "I told the Colonel to run for it and I distracted the stupid bots. One of them was a right pain, looked like a blue hedgehog."

Behind me, TD tensed again, his fists clenched.

Before I could ask anymore, I heard the unmistakeable sounds of clanking. Knowing what was coming; I turned around and raced towards a darkened corner. Hidden there was some tarpaulin, which under that had a secret entrance to the sewer.

After opening said entrance, I gestured to both Marine and TD. When they both arrived, the raccoon slightly uneasy about standing next TD, I quickly muttered, "Ok, you two get out of here. It's me they want." I turned to Marine, who was holding the medicine filled rucksack. "Marine, go with TD until you've reached the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre. Once there, say aloud, 'Welsh-Doc sent me' and you'll get help. TD will show you the way."

After a nervous glance at TD, Marine replied, "But my friend Blaze knows some people at a garage! I could go there! And..." she glanced at TD again.

"Listen, TD will not hurt you. Trust me on this." While still looking unconvinced, she nodded, slowly. "And if you can get there, fine. TD will guide you, but if you can't get there then remember what I said. Now go."

After they both went down the hole, which I recovered with the tarpaulin, I heard a sharp crack, and the front door shot open. Pulling my hipflask from my belt, I stared at my challengers. Metal Sonic seemed to have retreated, but there were still five or so robots left.

Nothing I couldn't handle.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes<strong>

**(revised March 13****th****, 2012)**

**(i)** _It's a Technician Thing, _Chapter 30: i told you so iii Sonic. Look in the reviews under the Pen Name **Welshscot.**

**(ii) **Silver's work, and the delivery service that Sonic and Caleb work under is a pun for 'speed of light'. In Latin it roughly translates to 'faster than the sun'. Pays to have an over achieving bus-buddy that studies Latin.

Tell me what you thought of this chapter.


	4. Why don't we run away?

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Exploder**, **HalfWright**, **xXCookieGiverXx**, **SmallSpek**, **Angel-of-Energy**, **A Ugly faic**, **cutelittlefreak**, **WelshScot**,**ChaoCream**, **LordCooler**, **Pirony**, **Ficfan421 **and **L.L x C.C** for reviewing the last chapters.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. ~Willa Cather<br>_...  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Four<br>_.  
>"Why don't we run away? We can leave all our problems at the door."<br>..._  
>Hell Yeah <em>by Zebrahead

* * *

><p>There was a bar hidden deep inside Tails' half mechanical brain labelled 'Urge-to-kill Meter' and at the moment the needle was fluctuating between 'Dormant Psychopath' and 'Homicidal'. A pulsing monster commonly known as 'Headache' was making its presence known in his temple and the overbearing heat wasn't doing anything to make the situation easier now that anger was starting to flare in his blood. The school holidays were meant to be for relaxation or the general avoidance of all things legal and bad in the world, like homework and bed-times.<p>

_Normal _fourteen-year-olds didn't have to deal with this kind of shit.

"We must have come to the wrong garage," Wave said, trying to push her team-mates out the door, "we're looking for the _best _one in Soleanna." The snide remark immediately started to make his blood boil. He just wanted to go to bed or something.

"Well you're looking at it," the fox snarled, "but by all means go find one with more than six years experience, better equipment, _and _lower pricing. Have _fun _makin' sure they aren't bugged, because if they are, Egg Pawns will be rippin' you apart before you can get outta Soleanna. _And _as a bonus, you don't get to deal with _this _jackass." Tails jerked his finger in Shadow's direction, and the hedgehog's eyes widened slightly. It made sense; he probably hadn't seen the mechanic this pissed off in a while.

"Sorry," Shadow smiled sarcastically, "his grammar turns a little iffy when he's agitated."

The confused looks that the birds exchanged gave him a small bit of satisfaction, but he was still incredibly riled up. In one day- and not just any day either, the _start _of the school holidays- he'd taken in some kind of narcissistic weirdo, gotten his shoelaces stolen, broken some top quality solar modules and encountered these egotistic Gear riders, which had made him realise exactly how utterly lacking in skill he was.

"Maybe we _should _head somewhere else," Wave murmured, starting to push the boys out of the doors again.

"Fine," Tails replied pettily, crossing his hands over his chest.

"But Wave!" Jet interjected, ducking under her arm, "It's getting dark soon and we don't have much money for a hotel."

"Hate to interpolate, but we run a cheap hotel service as well," Shadow smirked, and the birds looked between each other, unable to really contemplate the news.

"What are you saying?" Tails hissed, gripping Shadow's elbow.

"I'm not sleeping here tonight, it's not my problem," the hedgehog threw Tails the keys and strode out of the garage.

The yellow fox whipped himself around the door of the garage and pegged a nearby wrench at him, which the hedgehog ducked, as he usually did, "_Fine, _you shameless _slut!"_ It was unfortunate that Shadow derived some sick enjoyment from such claims, and simply waved in response. That bastard _knew _that Tails was too kind-hearted to leave people out on the streets, especially people with Gear he was so completely fascinated with. Shadow liked to indulge himself.

_In two-cent hoes, _Tails reminded himself bitterly before he turned back to the birds that were standing there awkwardly, unsure of what to do, "What?"

"Was he serious about the housing thing?" Jet asked, his demeanour weaker than before. It seemed that his proud exterior could also fall victim to penniless situations, like the one he was in now.

Tails shrugged nonchalantly. It seemed that yelling his frustration at Shadow vented a little bit of anger out of his hyped up system, "It's no official service but everyone that lives here pays for food, water and electricity, _equally _for the amount of time that they stay here."

Wave stepped forward again, a little quizzical at the request, "Wait a second, so you don't actually _charge _people for shelter in the first place?"

Tails shook his head, despite the prickling annoyance he felt towards the older bird, "No. It just seemed a little stupid to me. I normally earn enough rings to pay for the Crisis City housing tax by myself. My friends help me out when I need it though."

"So it'd be alright for us to stay here?" Jet asked sheepishly.

"We only have one room left, tonight you guys would have to sleep on the couch, but if you were to stay any longer than that you'd have to share the spare room."

"Done it before," Storm shrugged, looking at his shorter team mates, "no biggie."

The green hawk nodded, though it seemed this option pained him, they probably knew the danger that lingered in Crisis City's streets, "We'll pay for the things we use but we need the garage supplies more than any of that."

"Will you be requiring my assistance?"

"No offence, but we don't trust anyone but Wave with our gear," Jet shifted his eyes in the bird's direction, watching as Tails blue irises flickered from her back to him, "Shit, we haven't introduced ourselves, haven't we? I'm Jet the hawk."

"Wave the swallow," she supplied a little reluctantly, turning to their final member as Storm made a heroic pose that had Tails smiling.

"Storm the albatross!" If he had a cape he would have looked like a superhero.

"There are some -unlike you- that might have heard of us," Jet said rolling down the edges of his gloves to reveal flame-like tattoos, "We're the Babylon Rogues."

If Tails had been drinking water he would have spat it into their faces. The _Babylon_ _Rogues! _Extreme Gear rider extraordinaires! No wonder he didn't think of them immediately! He wouldn't assume they'd want to visit a city like Soleanna, where their Extreme Gear would be illegal to ride.

"I have heard of you," Tails said, feigning indifference, just thinking of all the times he had completely embarrassed himself in the last day.

"And?"

The yellow fox growled at their conceited behaviour, "What should it matter? Whether you're famous or not, I would not leave someone to the horrors of Crisis City streets." And at least while they were here, he could get a look at how their Extreme Gear had been constructed, "I'll be requiring an explanation from you though, if you're going to be staying here."

There was a long drawn out sigh from the green hawk but he nodded his head and they followed him up the stairs in single file, "Yeah, sure, whatever."

* * *

><p><em>Runaway <em>by Artist vs. Poet

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_More?" _Sonic howled when he saw the Rogues, "Tails, I'm sure I stopped lecturing you when you were _eight _about collecting weird things. First it was frogs, then it was rocks, and now you're collecting narcissistic bums that you find on the street!"

"_Please _Sonic, that was six years ago," his tone sounded on the edge of sarcastic and annoyed, and even he couldn't tell the difference between the two as he led them up the stairs. They were looking around at the 'wonderful' accommodations, probably wondering how they were going to recover from such a horrific experience as this one.

"Tails, I don't know if I can take much more of your 'Good Samaritan' tendencies," Knuckles said from his post on the couch. The bastard has taken all the _good _pillows and built a weird fort out of them while he flipped through an Extreme Gear magazine he had left on the coffee table.

"Unfortunately, I make up for the rest of you," Tails muttered darkly as he trotted down the steps towards the living room, gesturing for them to sit on the couch around Knuckles, "Here's the couch, and I'll probably be spending the rest of the evening trying to clear out the rest of the useless junk in the storage room, until then make yourself at home. Silver will act as your tour guide." The fox looked up to see the silver hedgehog peeking over the edge of the third floor's balcony before he waved idiotically, "He's the weirdo looking like a creeper up there."

The hedgehog let out an irritated huff and Tails turned to Knuckles who was steadily sinking deeper into the couch, "Shouldn't you be getting started on dinner, Knux... or is it someone else's turn?"

A small sound of annoyance passed his lips before he nodded his head and sunk deeper, "Before Tails heads to the third floor," Sonic interrupted them, claiming his favourite bean-bag in front of the television and turning it around to face them, "I think it'd be nice to know why three birdies like yourselves are down in the dumps when people with your talent are worshiped in this city."

Jet shrugged, seemingly iffy about telling Sonic anything, "There isn't much to tell."

"Summarise it."

The hawk hissed and spat out his explanation, "We came here for the Soleanna Grand Prix, but when Eggman saw our ship he gunned it down. Our zeppelin originally came from an air force so he must have thought us someone who wanted to oppose him, ultimately taking down everything that we own except our Extreme Gear."

Though he seemed sincere enough, Tails couldn't help feeling like there was more to their tale than what they were saying, but it wasn't a surprise. Everyone held their secrets.

"We've been trying to find jobs, but we were caught riding Extreme Gear by 'Egg Pawns', as you call them," Wave sighed, "and they damaged our Gear. Talk in the Underground led us to your garage, and here we are."

"Is _that _why you were trying to chase us before?"

"We thought that you were in a race," Storm said, "at least if you were racing we'd be able to bag the cash, but you guys were just trying to get back here."

"Ultimately ruining our plan."

"Ugh, shut up," Wave demanded, "the thought of starting from scratch again is hurting my head."

"I can go grab some aspirin," Tails murmured, getting up and walking into Shadow's room, striding out and vaulting off the couch, flying to the second floor.

"You guys aren't Anti-Mutant, are you?" Sonic asked. By the silence he got in return Tails assumed that they weren't. That was a relief.

"We've got abilities that can be considered 'super human', so we're in the same boat as you guys," Jet said, relaxing Tails before he remembered something and he slammed into the balcony, freaking out the birds downstairs.

"I just remembered that it was Shadow's turn to cook dinner!"

There was a collective groan from Sonic and Knuckles as they squashed their heads into the nearest pillows, "Maybe we should call take-out?"

"We called take-out on Tuesday, we can't do it again," Amy said, emerging from her room, "but maybe you could make an exception for the new guests?"

Tails looked in the till they reserved for buying take-out, but only three lousy rings lay at the bottom of the jar. They weren't even platinum rings, they were only bronze, and he had a feeling he'd contributed two of those.

"Listen," Sonic said, "this is really embarrassing but we don't really have any edible food but for what our friend Shadow cooked. And… this is putting it mildly; he's one of the worst cooks this side of Soleanna."

"Can't be that bad," Jet admitted.

Amy started giggling as Tails filled the glass of water, getting Shadow's cooking out of the dingy old fridge. The fox would have started laughing if it weren't for the fact that he knew he'd be eating what looked to be random bits of charcoal in a bed of stale rice. He made his way down to the second floor, giving Wave the aspirin to which she accepted politely, albeit a little reluctantly.

"So who are you guys?" the albatross asked curiously, and Tails decided that Storm was probably his favourite, obviously the kindest out of all of them, despite being a little dim.

"Ah, ridiculous, I can't believe we forgot to introduce ourselves," Sonic grinned, slapping his knee, "The name's Sonic the hedgehog."

Tails nodded towards them, not really as amused as his blue brother, "Tails Prower."

"Pink one up there is Amy Rose, Couch Potato over here is Knuckles."

"Oh my God! _Metal Knuckles?_" Storm exclaimed, eyes wide with child-like curiosity, "Can I see your hands?"

The red echidna rolled his eyes, "If I had a ring for every time I heard that…" Despite that, he removed his hands from between the pillows displaying regular organic hands, and a collective breath that all of the Babylon Rogues were holding rushed out in a miniature gust.

"Why'd ya wanna 'ssociate with someone like that anyway?"

"The former Metallix Brothers. Urban legends are one of the reasons we wanted to come to Soleanna in the first place," Wave admitted, an excitement in her eyes that Tails hadn't seen before. She looked kind of pretty like that, not scowling and more like a real teenage girl instead of the harsh woman that had snapped at him before, "_you're _locals, do you know if they exist?"

"Oh Metal Sonic exists alright," Knuckles scowled, something that he always did when he was referring to the metal rodent, "I'm not sure about the other two though."

"Oi! There ent no doubt 'bout the Tails Doll fella. He's no corporeal psycho babble the likes a which Silver tends ta entertain 'imself with," stated a very familiar voice.

Clambering up the stairs were Silver and Marine, a raccoon who was Blaze's Royal Mechanic, a position Tails would admit he was incredibly envious about, but whose mutant appearance forbid him from achieving. He'd never share this with the smaller raccoon because on many accounts Blaze had told him that Marine looked up to Tails, having been her former mentor and all.

"Ya serious?" Sonic called, rushing over to the raccoon in a blinding flash. The speed in which he ran over frightened the Rogues, who watched the papers around the coffee table fly up in a disturbed gush.

"Yeah!" The thirteen-year-old said animatedly, "He was all 'Can-ya-feel-the-sunshine?' and I was all like; 'Holy-green-jackeroos!' I'm tellin' ya, it was horrific, but he ent such a bad guy. Got me over to this place, safe as houses," she winked her large blue eyes, "he had ta split, but I came over here ta tell ya about the guy that saved me. His name's WelshScot, and he might be needin' some help with some of that bloody fat-man's robots."

"C'mon, let's go!" Sonic announced, grabbing Marine's hand and leading her down the stairs, "And we'll be getting chilli dogs on the way back."

"You guys don't want dinner first?" Amy grinned from over the balcony.

"Who's cookin'?" Marine called.

"Shad-"

"Aaaand we'll be off mates!" she grinned before Sonic and the raccoon had disappeared into the garage. There was a tumble from upstairs and Caleb slammed into the balcony, looking fresh from his bed in the same clothes he had fallen asleep with.

"Did someone say Welshald Scottman?"

"Yeah. Something along those lines, why?" Silver snapped, at the same time Tails said, "I think you're saying it wrong."

He'd heard of him before, as 'WelshScot' though. One of the only mutant medics in all of Soleanna strong enough to stand up to Eggman oppression. A very dangerous profession for sure. Tails had never encountered the man, having never been in an Extreme Gear collision that he couldn't handle himself. He'd gone to Doctor Quack whenever a sickness or injury was too much for him to handle.

Caleb ignored the tone and looked about the bottom floor frantically, "I've been trying to find him for the last two years." He grabbed the railing off the balcony, performing an arc in the air, maneuvering his wrist to sit against the frames with feet balanced at the edge of the flooring before he dropped to the second floor, landing like a cat, "You have no freakin' idea how hard it is to find that guy. Bloody pro-mutant doctors are near extinct."

"Shame that traceur talent is wasted on a jackhole," Silver murmured before piping up and saying, "Why would ja need a pro-mutant medic unless…?"

"That ain't exactly any of your business, Cockatoo. Stick ta courtin' your girlfriend, lord knows you already have enough trouble with her," he snarled, eyeing the Rogues quickly before cracking his neck.

"How do you know about me and Blaze?" Silver replied defensively.

"You're not the only one that gets packages for New City," the brown fox replied cattily.

"Ch'yeah, forgot you would, bein' Rapidi Solis' golden-boy," Silver sneered, turning away from him.

"I worked for it, so you can _stop _bein' a conceited sod, Hedgehog and prance off with the fairies for a bit."

Anger flared in Tails at the way that the new comer treated Silver, a long time friend but he couldn't be outright rude to him because Caleb was right… a bit. He unclenched his fists and turned to the fox who had started making his way up the stairs, "Hey, Caleb, want some dinner?"

He gave a small little shrug and went over to Amy who'd caught on to Tails and offered the fox a bowl of the charcoal black indistinguishables. There was a strange silence as he scooped some into his mouth and chewed on it, Tails watched from his vantage point on the first floor as Caleb observed the strange look Amy was giving him. He swallowed the food and tilted his head to the side, "What'cha lookin' at, Pinky?"

"How'd you _eat _that?"

Caleb rolled his eyes, "Oh _golly gosh, _you folk ain't tryin' ta poison me, are ya?" He asked in a thick Southern accent before reverting back, "I'm not a picky eater. Try it. It isn't that bad."

Silver and Tails rushed up to see what was happening, leaving the three birds on the couch baffled. Knuckles probably would have gotten up, but he looked too reluctant to leave his little pillow fort. It was a strange phenomenon, when Shadow made something that was actually edible. Damn, if only Sonic was here.

They watched Amy dip her spoon into the offered bowl and chew on the supposed-food in fascination before gagging and spitting the substance up, "Bleugh!"

Caleb shrugged and took the food up to his room, leaving Silver and Tails laughing hysterically. They just _knew _it was too good to be true.

* * *

><p><em>Ice Box (Cover) <em>by There For Tomorrow

* * *

><p>He woke up the next morning sleeping on the only bed that had been uncovered in the spare room, immediately plodding over to the kitchen and turning on the smaller T.V to see what Sonic had accomplished overnight. Amy was awake already, making coffee and breakfast by the stove.<p>

"_Channel 27 reporting! Our crew has found the dismantled pieces of seven Eggman robots at the docks of New City, next to five mutilated bodies."_

"That must have freaked Sonic out," Amy murmured, and Tails nodded, accepting the steaming cup of coffee she offered him.

"_There are no witnesses, but the remaining circuitry of some of the robots reveals footage of a mutant with scales along his arm, and a brief glance at a man with a fox mask in a trench coat, with a small red gemstone hanging from the top of his head._

"_There are no more signs of the mutant; he seems to have completely disappeared. But could this be the elusive Tails Doll? Soleanna's own urban legend? We'll have more updates after the break."_

"It's a shame the Babylon Rogues aren't up to see this," the words were muffled by the rim of his cup. He'd fallen asleep contemplating the mysterious birds, and the true reason they could be in Soleanna. Sure, the Soleanna Grand Prix could be a valid excuse, but it definitely wasn't enough motive to come to a city that despised all that they lived for, which would happen to be Extreme Gear. They could have easily gone somewhere else; Soleanna wasn't the only cities vying for their attention, like Apotos. Why risk coming somewhere so dangerous?

Amy gave an affirmative grunt when _Heartbreak Made Me a Killer _by Short Stack started playing from upstairs. Tails and Amy watched as Caleb made his way down, zipping up his jeans, pulling on his shirt and sliding on his jacket, all without even a decent 'hello' before he disappeared through the garage door. Tails cocked his head to the side.

"How come his job is so demanding, while Sonic and Silver's isn't?" Amy mused.

"Yeah… they work for the same company don't they?"

"Curious…" the hedgehog sighed before turning back to the toast, basking in the early morning light. Mornings in Crisis City were always the same, and almost hard to distinguish between the dusk and dawn with sunlight awash with yellow and orange as it swooped over the horizon in a gentle arc. He normally never woke up this early. He wondered what had prompted the change in his sleeping schedule, especially when he was up so late working.

"What's the agenda for today?" Amy grinned, offering him a plate of buttered toast.

He took a piece and mulled the question over, "I don't have anything past cleaning the storage room so that the guests can sleep in there, but that could take up the entire day."

"Good luck with that, I've got hairdressing lessons from nine to four."

"Have fun," Tails replied dryly.

"Well, learning would be easier if there was someone with longer fur around." She noted, crossing her arms across her chest, annoyed.

"Caleb has a pony-tail, it goes halfway down his back," Tails observed, wondering how that strange fact had made itself known in his mind. Amy obviously shared the thought, looking at him strangely before shaking his head.

"Uh-uh. He'd probably bite my hand off if I tried."

Tails snorted into his drink at the accuracy of it. He had no doubt that was how Caleb would react.

"Yeah, that's right. Choke on your coffee," Amy laughed gleefully.

There was another thunk from upstairs and Silver came down, his quills a mess of bed-hair, muttering something along the lines of 'stupid early risers' before ducking behind Tails, taking a sip of his drink.

"Hey!"

"It's your fault that I need it, this… _devil's _liquid. I hate coffee," he growled, amber eyes narrowing at the fox who glared right back. There wasn't any reason to ask why he was being such a prat, Tails already knew. But it's not like he could do anything about it, Silver needed to stop stealing things, he wasn't a pick-pocket any more, "So do you know if Sonic or Shadow came back last night?"

"Shadow came back," Tails affirmed.

"How do you know?"

"The bottom floor smells like whore."

Amy cringed at his bluntness, but Tails didn't know how to put it any other way without making the situation seem awkward. Shadow was a womaniser, no amount of lying would make it any different, "Alright, but what about Sonic?"

"Not sure," Tails stood up and looked over the balcony, noticing that Sonic's door was open, "but I'm pretty sure he's not, or we probably would be able to hear his snoring."

"Whatever," Silver sighed, rubbing his eyes, "I'll probably go and visit Blaze today."

"Ugh, will _no one _stay to help me?"

"You totally brought this on yourself," Amy smirked over her mug of hot chocolate.

Tails dragged his hands down his face, but he had to agree with her, "Yeah. Fine."

They dispersed after that. After brushing his teeth he headed back to the spare room and rolled up his sleeves.

"Have at thee, useless junk!"


	5. The Heart You Stole

**domi|note **Let's set the stage for a little _drama. _Sorry! The fast-paced-ness is due in the next chapter, here it's pretty slow until the end.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **A Ugly faic**, **LordCooler**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek**, **cutelittlefreak**, **brave kid**, **WelshScot**, **ArmalRavenwing**,**Ficfan412** and **superechidna **for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>You are remembered for the rules you break. ~Douglas MacArthur<em>

…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Five_

"Still I forgive you once more. Take these broken wings, fly from the heart you stole."  
>…<em><br>Whataya Want From Me _by Adam Lambert

* * *

><p>He stumbled down the stairs like a drunken puppet, holding onto the railing to keep himself up. Tails' limbs felt like goo, sliding along the walls to reach the garage. He'd just finished cleaning out the spare room and dumping everyone's stuff in their respective places, but he needed assistance with a gravital polarity meter that had rusted on 'Increase' instead of 'Decrease'. That meant that it was now three times as heavy as it was meant to be, and thus impossible for him to carry.<p>

He was about to turn to go downstairs, when he overheard Wave speaking to Jet and Storm. Immediately throwing away all thought to doing the right thing, namely _not_ eavesdropping, he stayed on the steps and leant against the wall silently.

"Damn. Skinny runt has more equipment here then I ever had on the zeppelin," Wave lamented, and he could hear her walking around fiddling with his things. He didn't particularly mind, any mechanic worth their metal knew to respect tools, no matter who they belonged to.

"Bet 'e'd show you where everythin' went, if ya asked him nicely enough," Storm admitted, receiving a scoff in return.

"He thinks he _knows _Gear. No way, he's earnin' my Extreme Gear Specialist respect, whether he's giving us shelter or not." Tails fur prickled at the challenge, and he noted that he would silently undergo it. He was used to people underestimating him, more so than he should have had to deal with, especially her kind of cynic.

"Don't be too mean about it," Jet crowed, "bet it's a nice deal here, not payin' housing tax and all that. Take advantage of their kindness while you can, you know?"

"Whatever you say, Boss."

"Though it is kind of annoying to be stuck with that blue rat," he growled, but after some pause he made a slight squawking noise, "yeah, you're right Wave. Don't worry! I did my research."

"You know, Sonic's role as some kind of 'Justice League' character might get us in some hot water later on," Storm commented, earning groans of agreement.

"That is true, but we need to save up as much money as we can to get a new ship, buy off the Underground to get my Grandfather's key so we can get the hell out of this cesspool and be rid of these lunatics once and for all," said Jet.

"What about Wave's gramps?"

"Hush up, Stupid! Lesser known the better, once we have a zeppelin again we'll think about it."

"We'll need to get a ship, this garage-"

"Ain't nothing in here worth stealin'," Jet declared, and the young mechanic didn't know whether to be offended or relieved, "it'd be a better idea to steal somethin' of that Eggman guy. But until then, we're going to have to deal with the blue needle brush and his twitterin' little friends."

Tails wondered what the 'Key' business was about, not at all phased by the 'lunatic' comment. The Black Arms Garage had been called names worst than that, 'Nuthouse' among them. These certainly were mysterious birds. Maybe he should have stopped listening in on their conversation now.

"Better'n dealing with a ten-year-old that thinks he's better at this art than you. I've been at this since I was _born._ There is no way I'm letting an immature, prattish little flea-bag upstage me, thinking he has once _ounce _of Extreme Gear talent."

"Hear, hear!" Jet exclaimed happily.

The words cut at him like knives, sinking into his skin and sprinkling salt over the wounds. He may not have been as good as Wave but he didn't think he was completely talentless either. He'd been self-teaching himself advanced aerodynamics and theoretical physics since he was six. He'd been building, designing and flying his own creations as soon as he was seven-years old. He was pulling apart molecular structure in various metals to create his own mixture, building engines and fixing Extreme Gear since he was eight.

The fox was modest by nature, but he was sure those weren't exactly ordinary feats. Of course, his mutation did deal with a vast majority of the information; it gave him a larger brain capacity enabling him to remember everything clearly. However, most of the data he had collected had been through sheer determination and countless repeats of tiring trial and error. He felt incredibly offended that she now put down his skill like that.

He went upstairs again, moving as silently as possible, the words sinking into his heart faster than he would ever consciously allow.

* * *

><p><em>Thick as Thieves <em>by Short Stack

* * *

><p>He was hostile as he passed them half an hour later, finally building up the courage to ask Storm to move the gravital polarity meter out of their room. Jet was nowhere to be found, but Wave was on his table, sitting cross-legged as she disassembled the green Extreme Gear with what looked like intense difficulty. He thought of going over to help her when her words from this morning echoed in his mind.<p>

He leant against the wall, mentally figuring out how to word his sentence when he approached her. The young fox decided to simply cease communication completely and move over to speak to Storm who was near one of the opened garage doors doing a sequence of strange martial arts moves he had never seen before. Each movement looked like slowed down Kung-Fu that flowed with more grace and proficiency, as if some strange mix between self-defense and dancing. He'd never thought that a hulking bird like Storm would be capable of moving like that.

The fox was tugging at his tails when he approached Storm, but didn't realise he had been staring until Storm stopped the exercise to look at him with inquisitive blue eyes. One thing he'd noticed about Jet and Wave immediately was how _light _their eyes were, there was nothing to hide behind when their irises were a blue that bright in hue. Storm's were harder to see, surrounded by a natural rim of black feathers, his blue eyes were less prominent, "Hello. Didja want something?"

He had to shake his head a little to clear his thoughts, "Ah yeah, yer room's almost complete, I just need to get a gravital polarity meter out of the corner."

Storm looked at him blankly. Tails jumped and hit his temple with the palm of his hand, "It stabilises Extreme Gear innards, weight wise, so that they fly properly."

"'_Innards'?" _Storm laughed, probably at the misuse of terminology and not at Tails' awkward sentence structure. It was infectious, and Tails was amused at the way that Storm's entire body moved along with him when he laughed.

"Ah yeah, Shadow and I used to make jokes about… Extreme Gear being alive and… tearing them out and… stuff. He's just… he's a pretty morbid guy," Tails chuckled effortlessly, the white tips of his tails slipping out from between his fingers, "I just remember it because it was the first joke he made, and it stuck. He has a wicked sense of humour."

"Really?" Storm grinned, and Tails stepped back, inclining his head to make sure Storm followed him. The grey bird did so obediently, lured in with tales of sweet stories like a fly to honey.

"Yeah," Tails said, moving at a steady pace now.

"I can't really imagine a bloke like 'im tellin' jokes," the albatross admitted as they started up the stairs. Tails savoured the small little look of betrayal Wave sent their way, but when their eyes locked she turned away instantly.

"Oh, he makes them all the time. But Shadow's a bit o' a 'black humour' fanatic, and he says 'em when he shouldn't. He once pranked Sonic into thinking that he'd cut off my tongue. _Without _my knowledge."

"Really? _How?_" he decided he liked Storm, he might have seemed a little stupid but there was a child-like innocence in his eyes Tails liked. He found it pretty endearing.

"Well," Tails said, starting to ascend the stairs of the second floor, "when I was eleven years old, I got braces. A few days before that happened I'd been a little… 'off my rocker' and I wouldn't stop talking. Shadow threatened me, and said that he would cut out my tongue if I said one more word. _I _stopped, but Sonic continued to talk. Shadow said that Sonic was next."

They passed the kitchen and made their way into the spare room, "Keep going."

"Same time that was happening, Amy decided that dinner a ways away was gonna be barbequed ox tongue," he snickered, pointing over the gravital polarity meter, "and she asked Shadow to grind them up so she could make them into 'beef patties', ya get me?"

"Yeah," Storm grinned, picking up the polarity meter with ease. He was so amazed his eyes widened a fair bit before he continued with the story.

"He got one of the tongues and labelled it 'Tails', covered it with strawberry jam to look like blood, and then he made a sandwich and started eating it as Sonic came into the kitchen."

They were on the second floor now, and Tails was trying to stop the giggles from bubbling up his throat so he could tell the story right, "I dunno. I returned around that time and saw Sonic heading into the kitchen, and then he just looked at Shadow suspiciously before he saw the tongue in the fridge." Tails shrugged a little as they started to proceed down the stairs, "He screamed a little and then he went over to me, and he was forcing me to open my mouth, but _I _didn't want to because my teeth hurt too much." His statement sounded a little bit like a question. "So he automatically assumed Shadow'd cut out my tongue. He was screaming something along the lines of 'Shadow, you sick bastard!' for the rest of the week."

They were in the garage now, and Storm's slight chuckles escalated into really loud belly laughter. He had to put the meter down to clutch his stomach, and Tails joined him because the happy sounds were infectious. He was wiping tears out of his eyes by the time that they were done and Tails finished speaking, "So to get on Sonic's bad side, offer him a sandwich of strawberry jam. To get on Shadow's good side, do the same thing."

"Thanks," Storm nodded enthusiastically, looking back to the meter, "Where do you want this thing?"

"Up against any of the walls is fine, preferably in that corner," he said, pointing under the bench for in Shadow's section of the tools. The hedgehog wouldn't mind that much… hopefully.

Tails dipped his head courteously before he heard Wave swear from the other end of the garage and went over to inspect what had happened. She was still trying to dismantle Jet's gear, but she was using the wrong screwdriver size. He noticed that it was the one that he had left out from a previous project, and his screwdriver sets were in desks underneath the table she was sitting on. He also saw that she'd rummaged through the items on his desk already, but nothing had been put completely out of place.

He already understood that she didn't feel comfortable asking him where things were, and must have just settled for the closest tool suited for the job.

"Hey, do you want some-?" he asked, when she abruptly cut him off by slamming the screw driver into the metal before her. He watched silently, her head bowed to face the board, and her arms rigid with anger and frustration. She slowly looked up and her eyes met his, her irises awash with bright blue flames.

"Where do you get off _eavesdropping _on us like that?" her voice was filled with acrid venom, dripping from her words and making her sound menacing and frightening.

"I-um you-"

"As I thought," she spat like speaking to him disgusted her, which it probably did, "you might look all cute and innocent, but listen to me fox, _I don't __**like**__ you. _One doesn't earn a reputation like this one on sheer dumb luck alone, but you're a _novice _compared to me."

Tails was about to retort but Wave shook her head and continued speaking, crossing her arms over her chest, "Ah nuh, infidel responses aren't gonna do it for me, Kitty, so just know this; cease contact, don't talk, don't _look _at me unless it is _completely _necessary. I'm not here to make buddy-buddy with you and all your little friends, and neither is Storm," she looked to the side and sneered, "despite how easily influenced he is by cutesy jokes like yours." She scoffed, "Ha. Barbaric." Her eyes held complete resentment and seriousness as they flickered from Jet's board to his eyes, "We're here for a purpose, bigger than your stupid little Grand Prix, so _leave. Us. Alone._"

Tails stared at her for the longest time, completely shocked into silence before he bent down and slammed something onto the table angrily, "Hexalobular socket drive. Fraction seven over sixty-four. Two point eighty-five millimetres. It'll work better than the one you're using now." There was only a calm and blank look in his dull blue eyes as they met hers.

He walked over to the garage stairs quietly, noting how the entire room had fallen completely silent apart from the sounds filtering from the outside.

"I told you so."

"Piss _off_, Storm!"

* * *

><p><em>Breathe <em>by The Prodigy

* * *

><p>He swept through the contents of his room, finding his Extreme Gear charging underneath a stack of clothes he'd thrown over it. He picked it up and made his way down to the garage picking up a tool kit from the door and the log book open by one of Shadow's benches, throwing his extreme gear to the floor and activating it.<p>

The walls of his home were now suffocating, and Wave's words bounced back and forth until they came to him like punches in the face. He'd never been so unconditionally hated for his Extreme Gear skills before. Haters of his mutant nature were something petty and stupid now, but he'd never met someone that surpassed him in Extreme Gear before. Wave was his _idol. _He'd adored her. When he was smaller he vowed he'd meet her one day, so to say she'd let him down was an understatement.

Disappointed and on the verge of tears he composed himself and decided he'd make home calls to anyone who'd organised an appointment. He was zipping around corners and through traffic with ease, checking in with his clients to see if they were ready to be serviced, trying to take his mind of the horrific circumstances of his home. The young kitsune longed for someone to talk to, but everyone seemed to be abandoning him at this time. Amy was at school, Silver was with Blaze, Knuckles was at work, Shadow was on errands and Sonic was still MIA.

He reached a hotel loft in New City around five hours later, taking the back streets to avoid the cops as he swivelled into the parking lots, buzzing into number seventy-eight; his final job of the day. This client's turning durability had completely disappeared, and since it had nothing to do with the engine Tails deemed it safe enough to handle in the apartment. The client didn't mind all that much either.

"_Yeah?" _said the voice over the intercom.

"Representative of Black Arms Garage, here to fix your Extreme Gear?"

"Ch'yep, come right in."

He watched his surroundings carefully, not feeling entirely safe in New City, despite it being much safer than Crisis City. He knocked on the door, finding it swinging open of its own accord to see a small little child, a rabbit holding a strange little stuffed toy.

"MINA! TAILS DOLL IS AT THE DOOR!"

"LUCY! GET AWAY!" Tails jumped back from the door as a taller yellow mongoose pulled the little girl back behind him and away from the door before he jabbed a broken guitar neck at Tails.

When he realised exactly how _un_threatening Tails was he gave the little girl a dirty look and put the neck away, ushering the frightened mechanic in, "Sorry about that, she's a little eccentric. Obsessed with the Tails Doll myth."

"Is telling someone that age about the Tails Doll legend a good idea?" Tails asked, still a little shocked from the assault.

"S'not our problem, we're just babysittin'. My name is Ash, my band's rooming here for our concert and my girl Mina is a pushover, so when the neighbour asked if she could babysit she couldn't say no." He turned to the little white rabbit and stuck out her tongue, "But the little brat's proved herself more trouble than she's worth."

The rabbit went of to play, but he noticed now that the stuffed toy she was hugging to her chest was a small little fox, which looked disturbingly like him without irises and the small little gem connected to its head was made of fabric. The real Tails Doll wouldn't look half as adorable.

"Your girl 'Mina'?"

"Hm, Mongoose, lead singer of the Forget-Me-Knots? Heard o' them?"

"Really? Where is she?"

"Where's who?" Mina asked, striding out from behind another door when Tails abruptly attacked her, "Oh! _Tails! _I haven't seen you in years!"

The purple haired mongoose swept Tails into a hug and squeezed him till he couldn't feel his ribs, "Wow! Mina, how are you?"

"Ah, care to explain?" Ash asked them, eyebrows knitting together suspiciously.

"Damn," Tails looked at his watch, "I'm strapped for time Mina, explain it to me while I'm fixing your Gear."

"_You're _the mechanic? I knew you could make it."

Mina gave him the gear and they set it on the coffee table to work on it. He tapped the exterior and then checked the panelling at the bottom.

"Yeah, the puffer jets at the bottom are damaged, without these steadily streaming torrents of air, you've got no roll stabilisation so you can only move left and right. Loose movement once you hit a wall and the board'll just shut down and give up unless you hit the ground yourself and change the direction, but that's incredibly dangerous and could have you zooming off and breaking yer neck in no time," he said, not entirely expecting Mina and Ash to be listening.

"Wow, I did not get _half _of that," she laughed, patting his head.

"Don't worry, I'll fix it but it'll take more than half a week, so it'd be better to leave it at the garage."

"How much will it take to fix it?" Ash asked.

"Around eight thousand rings, if I can find some decent new panels, but your lucky! For a limited time only I can install solar modules into the back of the board so it'll soak up sunlight and give you as much power as the air does to compensate for not gaining trick-air."

"We'll take it!" Mina declared.

"Mina! Don't rush into decisions like that."

"You don't know who this is Ash, he's Tails Prower! He's a genius! Your board will come back twice as good as new," Mina grinned, green eyes wide with exhilaration.

"How did you two meet?"

"Wow, what nostalgia. Mina and I went to the same orphanage after The Massacre, she and Sonic used to be best friends until…" Tails trailed off at the look that crossed Ash's features, "But then she got a break with a talent agent, and got to tour the world! It's all good."

"You know _Sonic the hedgehog? _Mina, why didn't you tell me?" Ash growled angrily, watching as she recoiled a little, "I've been wanting to murder that blue son-of-a bitch for hurting you all along but-"

"You will _not _hurt him! And I-"

"I think I better be going now," Tails said loudly, picking up the gear, "It'll be done in around a week! Call me then."

"Oh but Tails-" Mina protested, "You just got here…"

"'T's my job, Mina," he waved at the door but she ran forward to envelop him in another hug.

"Tell Amy and Sonic I said 'Hi', 'kay?"

"Yeah, if Sonic hadn't gone MIA on us, I would, trust me," Tails rolled his eyes, prying her hands off him.

She tilted her head to the side, "What? Is it anything to get worried about?"

"Hopefully not, we'll keep in touch, yeah?"

"Bye!"

Sweeping through Crisis City once again his thoughts were occupied by Sonic's strange disappearance. He wasn't normally away for more than two nights without leaving something on the news for them to see. He swivelled in between the alleyways to reach the garage, leaving his board at the nearest power socket along with Ash's to run up the stairs to see who was at home. He was stopped when he saw Shadow and Rogue sitting on the couch next to his workshop, reserved for things _apart _from Extreme Gear and cars like computers and the like.

"-what you say is true… No. Hardly. I'm not a GUN agent any more."

Shadow was a _GUN agent?_ It came as a surprise to Tails, because he knew of details from everyone else's past _except _Shadow, and suddenly a beautiful woman comes into his life knowing so much more about him than a friend whose known Shadow for around five years.

"S'not that Shadow, the Chaotix-"

"Stop talking," he murmured, jerking his head in Tails direction. The young fox regarded them with an innocent smile before turning around and heading out again. He _still_ couldn't deal with the shit home brought_. _And he had some time before sunset, the ideal time to be heading back.

Walks in Crisis City entailed passing at least ten homeless, trying to ignore seven sets of shifty guys in trench coats, and five people scamming others into buying their miracle product which would most likely break as soon as one opened the packaging.

He needed a place to think and reassemble his thoughts, and his feet guided him self consciously to such a place.

Unfortunately, the cemetery was in flames.

* * *

><p><em>I Will Not Bow <em>by Breaking Benjamin

* * *

><p><em>No.<em>

His parents didn't have bodies any more, only two crosses of white steel made from the foundations of their old house. But even steel could melt if put under enough heat.

He looked around, being pushed aside by the other people trying to get out of the cemetery as fast as possible to avoid the heavy throws Eggman's robot was dealing their graves. Tails recognised the machinery instantly; the same used in 'The Massacre'.

_They're decapitating dead bodies for __**construction?**_

The thought was as disgusting as it was horrendous, and he could think of a million reasons as to why the act was so completely _wrong. _But he was stuck here now, figuring out what to do as trees and headstone alike were thrown apart in a whirlwind of soil and fire. Children and adults, humans and Mobians were screaming, injured and fleeing as the construction robot desecrated their loved one's bodies.

It was so like…

So like ten years ago…

Suddenly he was four again, and the bodies of his parents lie dead at his feet while consuming flames reflected in tainted blue eyes.

The fire was so close now, blocking him off from his parent's graves in a great wall of towering inferno. It didn't matter; he knew they were gone, along with the letters and flowers he had buried instead of their corpses. It didn't matter anymore because he felt like the flames were severing his connection to the white steel. Instead he was filled with an incomprehensible rage at Eggman, and what he had done to him, to _thousands _of families for his thoughtless, stupid greed.

He darted around graves and kicked off a fallen log to reach the metal titan, dodging bullet spray and rotating his tails to properly land on the giants head. Mechanical claws tried to reach him, but Tails grabbed onto the supposed wrist, kicking the tip of his shoes into the panelling of the arms so that the metal fell away and revealed the circuitry underneath it. It would have been a feat impossible to achieve if he was still in his passive-depressive state, but now Tails was fuelled by fury, so at the same moment the robot's other arm reached him, he'd already ripped the arm clean from the socket.

Ignoring the electrical pulses singeing his fur and attacking his nerves, he twisted himself to meet the other arm; this one had the built in machine gun. He steadied himself as the robot tried to shake him off, and upon closer inspection of the weapon he realised that it was a submachine gun and automatic carbine type that Shadow was very fond of. He was a tiny bit surprised to realise he could also recognise it as a CZ Model 25, a fairly difficult weapon to maintain, and thus Tails surmised, in around three seconds, that this robot was meant for the utter annihilation of everyone in the graveyard, and for no other purpose. He had to hurry up, the slow pulses of electricity were making his limbs spasm and shake and the way the robot was slamming itself into trees to shake him off weren't helping his coordination.

The young fox knocked his elbow into the control panel, looking over the technology once before implementing the robots target trajectory to mistake its own code for that of organics. He pulled out a wire and rerouted the transmitter from MeteoTech into the robot's database so that the commands would bounce around in his mechanical computer brain. The robot managed another slam into the trunk of a great oak, sending the breaking black bark into Tails skin, digging into his flesh. It ached, but he soldiered on, wiping the soot from his eyes. Finally he set the robot's commands into a limited time sequence, adjusting the digital clock to six seconds before he slammed the panel closed and hopped off, running as fast as he could before the robot would reach the end of its self destruction.

He forced one tired leg in front of another, ducking behind a tomb stone that hadn't deteriorated yet and shielding his ears as an earth-shattering explosion rocked the very foundations of the cemetery, the sheer force of it setting fire to everything that hadn't so far but the kitsune behind the broken cement. He opened his eyes to find the grass centimetres shy of his sneakers black with soot or alight with flame, broken baws over his head cracked and he rolled to the side to avoid meeting them in a fiery embrace. His back slammed into another tombstone and he forced himself up quickly, eyes watching the remains of the robot awash in reds and oranges sitting at the bottom of a pillar of cream-orange smoke, a stark contrast to the darkening night.

He staggered back, ignoring the people surrounding the cemetery who tried to ask him various question he didn't want to answer, most along the lines of 'Do you know what happened to the robot?' or 'Where the _hell _did that explosion come from?'

He decided to press on to Megalo station, dragging himself up flights of stairs, ignoring the strange looks he was getting from everyone as he passed all those in line for the Grand Prix. The fox slammed his ID card onto the table, shocking the people handling the registry.

"Tails Prower," he rasped, "of Black Arms Garage."

He ignored the flood of whispers behind him, watching as the human behind the stall paused in mild confusion, dark eyes darting to his companions and then back to the dishevelled fox in front of him. Tails was in a mess, fur and clothes alike were singed and torn from the battle, he was bleeding profusely and had no doubt he had strained or twisted something along with all his fried nerves from continuously being electrocuted.

It had been worth it to see that robot burn.

He was so tired of Eggman getting exactly what he wanted.

"_Black Arms Garage? _The _best _Extreme Gear maintenance in the city?"

"I hear they're housing the _Babylon_ _Rogues!_"

"Is _he _the head mechanic? But he's _twelve! _And _mutant!_"

"God damn, we're doomed! That's _Sonic the hedgehog's _best friend, and he lives with _Shadow!_"

"What happened to him? He looks like he just came from a street brawl."

"I'm not letting some skinny, mutant-runt show me up!"

Tails heaved in tiredly, a small sadistic little smile creeping onto his muzzle as he turned around and hissed at the people behind him, effectively making the crowd jump a meter back. He saw fear in the biggest, most threatening of the competitors, and he promised himself that would never be him with fear in his eyes.

_I will not bow,  
>I will not break,<br>I will shut the world away…_

_I will not fall,  
>I will not fade,<br>I will take your breath away…_

"Never again," he muttered, "I will _not _be Eggman's victim any more."

The human picked up his ID and his eyes widened, his voice coming out in frightened tremors, "You're… you're only _fourteen_."

Tails response was harsh and immediate, "I've still got _ten years _of payback coming Eggman's way and if you think my _age_ is going to stop me, you've _never_ been more wrong," he snarled, silencing the entire line, and most of Megalo Station.

"So _sign. Me. Up._"

Moments trickled by like silent waters before there was a deafening roar. Tails shuddered; his automatic reaction was assuming that another explosion had hit the station. His eyes were wide and more than a little confused when he realised what had _really _occurred.

The crowed had erupted into cheers.

* * *

><p>Shadow and Silver sipped hot cups of coffee and cocoa to begin their day, dishevelled after hauling in a half-dead Tails from the entrance of the garage late last night. Silver turned on the news, a ritual in the early morning used normally to find out what Sonic had done last night. Alas, he was still missing. So both hedgehogs were a little shocked to find what they did; an image of Tails attacking a robot head on, followed by a huge explosion that had been recorded late last night before the fox had been found at their door.<p>

_"__Authorities were astounded last night to find one of Eggman's robots had gone rampant on a Metal City cemetery last night. The doctor's scientists are now looking into the situation. The matter would have been worse, if not for a brave young hero who managed to subdue the robot so it would not harm any more innocents. Footage from the robot reveals a young Mobian, but there isn't much to work from with such damaged circuitry._

"_It seems as if the young Mobian had technical skills, successfully managing to change the oppression's targets and hack into its systems. This was followed quickly by moving into the robot's motherboard and altering its command sequence to self destruct, effectively stopping the robot in its tracks. But the young hero was nowhere to be found last night or this morning, having fled the scene immediately. Channel 27 asks anyone with information to contact them on…"_

The shock registered on Shadow's face soon slipped into a calm, serene mask once more, but there was a small ghost of a smile curving his lips.

"Do you think that he's turning into a bit like Sonic?" Silver asked worriedly.

Shadow stared into his coffee for the longest time before turning to the news report once again and shaking his head, "No… he's finding his own reasons to fight."

"_In other news, one Miles Prower, a mechanic of the famous Black Arms Garage caused an uproar last night by declaring public war on Eggman and registering for the experimental Soleanna Grand Prix. Extreme Gear Racing, being one of the most dangerous (and only __**temporarily**__ legal, and even then with conditions) sports known to Soleanna, is a sport designed for adults, so no rules about age limitations were placed into the guidelines, making Prower the __**youngest**__ competitor in history."_

Silver winced at the news, biting into his lip, "He's not gonna like that when he wakes up."

The crimson-streaked hedgehog watched with interest as a clip from last night, depicting Tails yelling at the officials in Megalo Station played, surrounded by a cheering crowd. The smile turned into a smirk at the clear defiance on Tails' face, despite the blurry quality of the images, "He'll find himself in these battles, but he won't regret them."

Silver mulled over the words, turning back to the screen, "You're right."

* * *

><p><em>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>On a cloudy night on an apartment roof, despite that the stars were hidden by clouds, Julie-Su's infra-red binoculars could spy the small, black truck that was backed up towards the Chemical Plant. As she watched, the pink echidna saw the thermal outlines of about ten people, four of whom were being dragged from one of the active cooling towers, which was billowing green, putrid smoke. Even though her binoculars couldn't give a clear image, she recognised the green, blue imagery of one of the prisoners, who was the most guarded of all. Chaos's body was like a walking block of melting ice, since the jelly mutant's humanoid form needed cold to solidify his water cells, which turned runny if exposed to extreme temperatures.<p>

_And if Chaos is around,_ thought Julie, _then Tikal isn't far off, nor the other medics._

"Why do we have to wait? Let's just go and save the docs now."

The echidna didn't turn around at the impatient hedgehog, who was tapping his feet with a clear intention of annoying Julie. Behind him, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor was Marine, who seemed just as restless as Sonic. She was also nervous, fidgeting once in a while by pulling at her backpack's loose threads, but she tried her best to hide it from her companions, to no avail.

When Sonic began tapping his foot even harder, which might have given away their position, Julie whispered back, with her eyes still pressed against her binoculars, "If we try and rescue them now we'll be out-gunned. This is one of their hideouts, deep within their territory. Even if we managed to take out the goons guarding the medics, which may be all the lieutenants of the SS, we still have to tangle with Scourge."

"I can take him," scoffed the blue speeder. "He may be as fast as me, but he's never been able to beat me."

Julie, who was now watching the SS load the medics in the van, replied sternly, "Yeah, that's because you had the FF watching your back. There are only three of us, a ganger banger who can take on about five goons at best, an aquakinetic who has never been trained and is a kid..." Marine flashed an irritated glare. "...And a jumped up speeder who puts his heart and feet where his brain should be."

Sonic growled at Julie, his fists clenched and teeth bared, "Fine, I'll do it myself! I move faster on my own."

He had turned round and was about to speed down the fire escape, when Julie muttered darkly, "Running in blind always ends up with someone else paying. I thought you'd have learnt that during The Massacre."

Sonic stopped dead. Marine, who was now sitting in an aura of tense anger, managed to glimpse Sonic's face, which seemed to sag under an emotion that the raccoon had never seen before. But while it was gone as quickly as it had come, Marine had recognised those eyes, the eyes that many mutants had, of loss and despair.

Before she could ask about anything, Julie-Su shot up, her binoculars still pressed against her face. "The truck's rolling out! They must be taking the doctors someplace else for the deal. If we follow it, we can rescue the doctors and get some dirt on Eggman!" She lowered her binoculars, which had made two ring marks around her eyes, and turned to her entourage. "I don't think the omelette will show up, but we might find out who's on his pay...What's the matter? Is there something on my face?"

Marine, who was trying to suppress her giggles, tried her best to answer the echidna without staring at her new eye marks. "N- Nothing, Julie-mate, I just remember'd a joke ol' Colonel had told me." She jumped to her feet, causing her backpack to create a resonating thud, as its contents began rolling around inside.

Not wanting attention to be drawn upon her backpack, which was filled with medical supplies that had been intended for Welshscot, she hurriedly asked, "So, where's dat truck headin', mate?"

Julie was still giving the rucksack a suspicious eye, but she made no comment and answer Marine's question, while she began heading towards the fire escape. "It looks like it's heading for the abandoned N-Zone district, the old police district before Eggman paid for the new headquarters in the old Rainbow-Wisp Meadow outside of town." She suddenly scowled, "Turned a beautiful place into a cop fortress to help 'prevent crime', aka buy favour from the Royal Court and get more real-estate."

Marine, who was scowling at this new information (the meadow, not the N-District), soon realised that Julie had passed her and was halfway down the fire escape. The raccoon hurried down, arriving to see a focused echidna and a blank-faced Sonic. She then remembered what had made him so blue, by emotion not fur, and was about to inquire when the hedgehog grabbed both women and began speeding out of the alleyway. When he reached the dark-lit road, he slowed down -for his standards- and began silently pursuing the truck, which was heading to the sight of an unexpected and hopefully awesome rescue.

* * *

><p>Ash and dust. These were the things that were clinging to the man's clothes as he stared at the dishevelled warehouse and the tall, unstable-looking building. As the man stared, whilst standing as still as a rock, a memory started to float into his mind's eye.<p>

_'Dang, Amadeus, you're lucky we met at the bar. If I hadn't offered you a lift, you'd have missed the baby.'_

_'I know, I was told by Doctor Quack that he wasn't due until next week.'_

_'Don't sweat it, we were happy to help. Weren't we, my love?'_

The man slowly nodded, and began walking towards the warehouse, confident that no one will hear him. Reaching its knackered old walls, the man began climbing up the rotten brick. Scaling it with such ease and grace, he made almost no sound.

_'Whoa, that is one cute kid. It looks like he's gotten your looks, Rosemary. Beats having his old man's... 'figure'. But it seems he has something from both of you.'_

_'I know... I can't understand how...'_

_'Don't worry, if he's anything like you two, he'll be fine.'_

That was what the man was going to check. Crouching low, he managed to sneak along the warehouse roof without so much as a creak. He reached the joint building and began climbing again, his coat now being blown about in the light breeze.

_'So, what's the little tyke's name?'_

_'We are going to call him... Trevor.'_

_'WAAAAAH!'_

_'Whoa, I don't think he likes it!'_

The man, with astounding strength, managed to pull himself up onto the railing, which moaned under the man's weight. But before it moaned anymore, the man pounced off the railing and into the gaping hole in the wall. He landed like a cat, making as much noise as a mouse.

_'WAAAAAH!'_

_'Ok, he really doesn't like it! How about... umm...Miles?'_

_'...WAAAAAH!'_

_'Oh come on! Do you really want to be called Trevor?'_

_'...'_

The man, who was now standing beside a sofa, looked down upon the sleeping, battered body of the young fox. He slowly began to reach into his coat, when the fox snorted, his eyes opening a fraction. As he stared at the man's face, he mumbled, "D-dad..?" before he rolled over, sleep taking him once more.

_'Well, looks like Miles will stick. Sorry 'bout that, Rosemary.'_

_'It's alright, I've never been able to find good names. But you do know this means you can be his Godfather?'_

_'Wow, really? That's great news! Isn't it, my love?'_

The man stared for a whole minute at the sleeping boy, before pulling out two, white steel and ashen strewn crosses. He laid them next to the sleeping fox, along with a piece of yellow paper, which read:

_Though your battle begins and ends with hatred, never lose what's truly important. Wisp is where you'll be tested, alongside wind, water and flame. Know that I will battle for you and if the arms turn white, you will survive in Radical City._

_In tua custodiam,_

_D.A._

The moment his fur-gloved covered hands had lifted from the paper, the mask man vanished into the darkness. He was soon to be found atop of the Black Arms Garage, looking at the last dust cloud that hovered over the cemetery.

He balled his fists, marking the moment of his vow. His vow to attack every person who had wronged the mutants, from the shadows, not just the scum that lined the streets. And if he had to, to strike the oppression at the highest of levels, he would leave the darkness and show them the true meaning of vengeance.

_'Rosemary, my dear, don't rush him into thing he may not-'_

_'No, its ok, Amadeus, I don't mind being his Godfather.'_

* * *

><p><strong>(revised March 15<strong>**th****, 2012)**


	6. I Don't Wanna Feel Your Pain

**domi|note**

Enjoy some nice action. My English teacher once told me that nothing in a novel is done without purpose. I'm starting to understand that, but at the same time I'm trying to cram in useless nonecessities (it's my own word, it's non and necessities… _joined together!_) whenever I can.

Stuff's up on DA to anyone who's interested.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **TinyDot/SmallSpek**, **The Guy in the Background**, **A Ugly faic**, **LordCooler**, **superechidna**,**WelshScot **and **Ficfan 421 **for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>One reason God created time was so that there would be a place to bury the failures of the past. ~James Long (Leadership Magazine, Winter 1997)<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Six  
>.<em>  
>"Don't wanna hear your sad songs; I don't wanna feel your pain."<br>_...  
>Mercenary <em>by Panic! At The Disco

* * *

><p>Blue irises made a lazy arc across the ceiling in a cute little eye-roll as he trudged into the kitchen the next morning, still looking as absolutely horrid as he did last night, but he didn't feel as bad. (He'd had the weirdest dream last night.) He slid into one of the chairs silently as he watched Knuckles and Amy fight over the microwave, something stupid and entirely unnecessary, no doubt.<p>

"C'mon! It's just weird," the echidna protested.

"I can't believe you're telling me off because I like to punch in one minute and thirty seconds instead of ninety seconds," she crowd angrily, bangs flipping around wildly. It seemed as if Amy was unaware of her bed-hair, which was weird because her hair was -ninety percent of the time- perfect.

"It's unnatural!"

"Stop being stupid, you're not the boss of my oatmeal."

Tails' helpless laughter snapped them out of their bickering like he'd suddenly set fire to the kitchen. They stared him down for the longest time, and it stretched beyond the point of awkwardness. He tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck, his eyes slipping towards the open microwave.

Then the two burst into animated speech at the same time, making them both difficult to understand. Amy screeched, "You should be in bed!" at the same time Knuckles yelled, "What did you _do _last night?"

He blinked at them, wondering which to address first. He still felt a little disorientated and sore from last night, most of the memory lost in a haze of rage and fury. His wrists had sustained the most damage, he'd thought one of them was sprained but the muscle had just been pushed to its edge. He still wanted to visit Doctor Quack though and make sure that everything was okay.

"I can't _believe _you. The stunts that you pulled last night were stupid and reckless, and because of that, there are _reporters _at the door," Amy exclaimed, making Tails wince. He loved Amy to bits but he'd never gotten over her decibel range and how much she liked to hurt his ears.

"Silver and Shadow managed to sneak out easily enough, but what about the rest of us?" Knuckles growled.

"I doubt _I'll _be able to get out there either," he muttered to himself, flexing his hands.

"What have you got to say for yourself?"

He rolled his eyes again, she sounded like a mother. "I need to call Doctor Quack."

The echidna and the hedgehog's eyes softened a little, "Are you hurt?"

Tails shrugged and looked around for the phone, which was always a difficult task by the way, "I was electrocuted last night and it messed up some of my nerves. I could be really hurt and I just don't know it yet, but I need to get the Doc to help me."

Doctor Quack was on speed dial, but the line was dead. He called again for good measure but there was no change. He scratched his neck and turned to Knuckles and Amy, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know how to reach that WelshScot guy, would you?"

"No, no one's heard of him since Sonic and Marine went looking for him two days ago. Oh shoot, Sonic still hasn't returned, hasn't he?" Amy murmured looking over the balcony to see Sonic's door swung open.

"No, it is a little suspicious isn't it?" Tails rolled his shoulder, attempting to regain feeling there instead of the numb pin-pricks of pain that spiked through his flesh every now and again, "I'm gonna call Blaze and ask if she's seen Marine."

But when he reached the princess' phone he couldn't get a word in edge-wise, all he received was a hurried, "Meet Silver at the mansion gates, we need to find the missing doctors," before she hung up.

The young fox stared at the wall, mulling the words over before rolling his neck and looking back to Knuckles and Amy, "I've gotta…"

"No! You said yourself you could be seriously hurt," Amy murmured.

"Yeah, I'll… I'll go to Vanilla, she went to nursing school before the hospital was destroyed, right?" he lied, heading up to his room to change into a decent pair of pants. He couldn't appear anywhere near the Royal Court in his boxers after all.

"Wait, I'll go with you," Amy offered.

"It's alright, Ames, I don't even know how you'd escape the building being inconspicuous." Knuckled opened him mouth but Tails cut him off, "And you've got work, Knux."

He was dragging his clothed self out of his room only to collide with Caleb as he descended the stairs leading down from The Attic/Silver's room. Caleb looked about ready to head out when he noticed Tails, duck around him, and he shot out his hand to grab Tails' shoulder.

"Hey Prower, have you heard from yer blue friend yet?" he asked, with no amount of malice or sarcasm. Tails hadn't yet associated a 'normal' tone with the older fox, and thus recoiled in shock at what he'd said. He didn't realise he was staring until Caleb shook his shoulder gently.

"Yo? Anything happenin' up there in ye old noggin'?"

Tails chuckled incredulously, despite the fact that he didn't like Caleb _at all. _He was willing to give _anyone _a chance after his talk (read; one-sided abuse) with Wave yesterday. The Babylon Rogues were not in their room this morning, so they must already be out. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, catching how Caleb blinked his large blue eyes in confusion.

"Um, no actually."

"Alright, then what about the loony raccoon he disappeared with?" he said, slipping a jacket onto his shoulders. Tails followed him absently, in the back of his mind wondering if Wave was in the garage because he sure as hell didn't want to see her at all.

"I haven't heard from Marine either. I was gonna meet with Silver and her friend a second ago so I could find out," he admitted, gasping in shock when he realised what he had said. He couldn't believe he had revealed the information, and what if Knuckles or Amy had _heard _him?

"Could I go with you?"

He paused. Confused. He had to admit that taking a leisurely stroll with Caleb _wasn't _at the top of his priority list. Not to mention the fact that the thought of Caleb only being nice because he _wanted _something had crossed his mind more than once, "Um… no offense but _why?_ This might be kind of urgent."

Caleb released a huff that bordered on the edge of a growl, "My reasons are too."

Tails sighed and nodded reluctantly, nodding in acquiescence, "I'm only letting you come if you tell me why. Alright, where's your Extreme Gear?"

"You're getting over there by Extreme Gear?" Caleb paled a little, stumbling on the steps down to the second floor. For the confident way that the fox moved, this was a strange sight to behold.

"Yeah, you own an Extreme Gear licence, don't you?" Tails asked in confusion, remembering how he had thrown the stolen wallet at the fox after finding it under Silver's sheets.

"That's a necessary requirement of anyone that works at Rapidi Solis; to have the capability to use two different forms of transport. I just rent the Extreme Gear they have at headquarters, I don't actually own one," he stated matter-o-factly.

"You can just borrow one of my spare models."

Caleb turned around, but he saw the nod of his head as they made their way down to the garage. Tails opened up a compartment in the wall and the metal gave way to heaps of board models in different styles and colours. Caleb's eyes almost popped out of his skull at the sight, his mouth falling open slightly, "Blimey."

"'Kay, what's your tricktionary?" he asked him, walking over to one side of the mass storage compartment.

"_Excuse me?"_

"I said tri-Oh! You don't know what that means. Sorry, that's rider's lingo for 'bag of tricks'. Wow, I haven't had to phrase it like this for a while, I mean; what's your preference? Do you normally ride with speed? Do you need curvature? Need to gain air? Grind? Or need something with a lasting durability?" he explained, withholding his snickers at the look of confusion that fell across the brown fox's features.

"I don't ride with anything, I normally just run everywhere," he exclaimed in exasperation.

"But you're a delivery boy," Tails said.

"So?"

"How can you manage without transport?"

"If it's too far I'll either hire a bike or catch public, you'll probably see why I don't like Extreme Gear in a few moments anyway. Just... stick me with something you would give a beginner."

"… Okay."

* * *

><p><em>So Much I Never Said <em>by Artist vs. Poet

* * *

><p>"I've taught <em>children <em>that can ride better than you!" Tails exclaimed as he tugged on Caleb's jacket for what seemed to be the sixteenth time since leaving Crisis City. He stopped the fox from slamming into a wall and swerved in front of him to brake, tapping the auto-slide on the Extreme Gear to bring them both to a sudden stop.

"And with that, I will not argue," Caleb admitted begrudgingly, blue eyes darting down to stare at his suddenly fascinating shoes. He wasn't fooling Tails (they were tatty and old) he could tell that the fox was honestly embarrassed for his horrible skill on the gear. It wasn't that he wasn't coordinated; it was the fact that he was always hitting the wrong controls; the speed boost when he was meant to turn, the gravity control when he was meant to brake, the turn when he was supposed to break. Okay… maybe it _was _a lack of coordination.

He had to admit that when Caleb snuck out of the Black Arms Garage, somehow managing to make it down safely despite escaping from the back of the third story (namely Amy's room) he was pretty impressed and assumed they would get to the Royal Court in no time. But as soon as Caleb had boarded the Gear, those hopes plummeted down the toilet.

"How the heck did you get your license?"

"When I was competent on a board," he snapped, taking out his wallet and giving it to Tails. Sure enough, it was expired, "I haven't ridden a board in years."

Tails stared at the ID a little more, before a thought hit him and he suddenly started laughing. He was doubled over by the time that Caleb realised what was happening, and he retrieved the ID, stomping a foot, "What the _fuck _is so funny about this situation?"

"You're riding an Extreme Gear, with an expired license. Do you not see the hilarity? You're doing something _illegal_ on something _illegal! _It's funny, man," Tails rammed his fist into the nearest wall, ignoring the fact that Caleb was looking more cross by the second. He did not see the humour in this situation.

When Tails finally stopped laughing the brown fox's expression had not changed, his features softened a little and he looked at the substitute board. The kit stopped being insensitive and watched as Caleb's eyebrows crinkled together, hurt flashing through his cobalt irises. He understood then, it was very common among the people he normally dealt with, more-so the people that wanted to sue him for apparently 'faulty' Gear. It affected some so badly they _never_ wanted to deal with Extreme Gear again.

"PTSD?" Tails questioned.

Caleb turned to him, eyes a little wider than usual before he closed them and shrugged, "A little. More non-existent now. But… Extreme Gear ain't like riding a bike for me."

"So you already know?" Tails questioned.

"It isn't exactly press 'x' to jump and 'o' to accelerate. I keep reminding myself this isn't a game, and I could seriously get hurt."

Of course, Tails hadn't thought of Extreme Gear racing like that in years. He hated to admit it, but it had left his mind after he developed a certain degree of skill. He felt like… like he'd gotten too good for it, wondering about getting hurt. But hundreds of people died from this activity, so he shouldn't be letting his guard down. Caleb was reminding him of that.

"More so than usual anyway…" the brown fox muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing," he replied abruptly, but Tails still watched him with a little bit of suspicion.

"Well, there isn't that much distance between us and the Royal Court now. Show me how a courier makes his deliveries," Tails grinned, and Caleb's eyebrows knitted together as he pressed a few buttons on the Extreme Gear so it would revert to its compact state.

"I don't take orders from runts. Landlord and mechanical genius aside," Caleb growled before he started climbing a brick-worn dilapidated building. Tails watched, holding his own gear and the one that the other fox had been using in both hands, while Caleb grabbed onto a protruding pole and swung from it as if it was a monkey bar. He gained enough momentum to perform a full three-sixty, followed quickly by the same wrist-twisting manoeuvre he'd seen him perform back at the garage. He vaulted from the pole, which looked like it was about to fall out, to land on it, watching as it finally gave way. Caleb stumbled a little before spying a pole that ran parallel to the building. He jumped off the horizontal pole and pounced onto the vertical one, kicking off it to reach the top of the building.

Tails pursed his lips, impressed. His tails rotated slowly, the speed necessary a little harder to attain because of his still slightly sore muscles, but he eventually got off the ground and onto the edge of the building. Caleb was still a little amazed at the way Tails was able to attain flight as he'd never seen something that defied his own understanding of the laws of physics, apart from Sonic. They stood at the edge of New City now, overlooking The Docks. He noted in the back of his mind that this would have looked like an epic movie shot, internally rolling his eyes at his own childishness.

"Where is the place we need to get to?"

"I'm not telling you until you tell me why, that was the deal remember?" Tails said sternly, and the fox groaned like an angsty teenager.

"Why're you so nosy?" he groaned, but that seemed to be a rhetorical question, "I just _need _to, okay? And since your friends were lookin' for the bloke last, I decided I'd ask 'em all nice like, if I could go, because I know we all got off on the wrong paw," he stated sheepishly, scratching his neck.

"That's got to be the understatement of the century," Tails chuckled a bit, "could it be that you're really a nice guy underneath all that sarcasm?"

Caleb snarled, immediately reverting back into a monster, "Don't push it, Shortie."

Tails flinched and pointed to a beautiful white mansion, one of those surrounding the Royal Pavilion, covered in ivy and guarded by beautiful Jacaranda trees, completely covered in purple flowers. Caleb deflated and rolled his head, "Why? _Why _didn't you just say 'The Violet Manor'? I could have gotten here by myself!"

Tails grinned internally, noticing something. Caleb had _dodged _his question! Weaselled out of the deal!

The bastard.

Seconds after Caleb's mini-tirade they set off to find the quickest route across the waters and to the manor. Tails was hopping between buildings and flying when his legs failed him, but that didn't last long due to the tired state of his body. Caleb was flying along effortlessly, climbing and leaping, running and tumbling, but he was tiring as well. Soleanna wasn't the easiest place to get around, especially when you had to continuously jump gondolas to reach the finish line (not to mention, fight off angry/frightened gondoliers.)

They raced towards the edge of the Royal Pavilion, Luminis Orbem, The Great Circle, jumping off the edge of one of the pillared walkways to land behind the great gates of The Violet Manor. Right next to the water's edge reside Silver, whose eyes narrowed at the sight of Caleb and his amber eyes flicked to Tails, demanding an explanation.

Tails wasn't up for their stupid non-verbal spat and immediately cut to the chase, "What's up with Blaze?"

Silver gained a more serious face as he turned from the silent fox to The Manor, "Blaze needs help getting out of her manor, they've replaced the main guards since the last time she escaped, and these ones are really good."

"Oh?" Tails asked, he knew breaking Blaze out of The Manor was a common past time for the both of them, her father didn't exactly make it easy for them either. Although he didn't approve of breaking her out, he didn't approve of the incredible limitations that he placed on his poor daughter.

Silver's curiosity gave out and he jerked his head in Caleb's direction, "What's he doing here?"

"Lookin' for either Sonic or Marine," he answered. Tails saw it as an obvious attempt to keep the venom from his voice. And he still failed.

Silver's chest puffed up, expelling a long, loud breath before turning back to the gate, "Okay fine, then you're going to help us get Blaze out of The Manor."

"Sure, no problem."

"What? No! That's not safe!" Tails exclaimed.

"What's not safe?" Caleb asked.

"We don't even know what kind of mutant you are, don't you understand? If you're caught, _you die. _No questions asked."

"I _get _that, Prower," he said confidently. Actually, Tails was sure he _didn't _get that, but it might have been due to utter stupidity that he had agreed in the first place.

"You're a mutant?" Silver asked, finally catching up to things.

Caleb gave Silver a 'duh' look and stuck out his tongue, "Lesser known branch of psychic power. Can't flaunt mine like you can."

"_Which _branch?" Tails and Silver asked at the same time, but Caleb wouldn't have it.

"Don't you worry your pretty little heads, I'd be fine even if I wasn't mutant," he assured them, rolling up the sleeves of his jacket, "just tell me what we're going to do to get the princess out. It's for your girl right?" he turned to Silver, "The pretty purple cat?"

Silver's fur bristled, but Tails gave him a look that clearly said, 'No! Bad boy!' and he stopped, slowly mulling over the plan himself. Silver had been here countless times but Tails had only been here once or twice. Being 'physically' mutant was incredibly hard. If he had a power he could hide, like Silver, Sonic and Shadow then life would be a lot easier.

"Yeah, and her name is Blaze, Heartnet."

"Oh, you learnt my name! I'm touched," he mock-gushed, placing his hand on his heart.

"Watch it!"

Tails sighed, "Stop it, you two! Silver, tell us what to do, you've been standing here long enough, surely you have a plan?"

The hedgehog's amber eyes looked from Tails to Caleb, "How good a distraction are you?"

"A fairly competent one I bet."

"No, I mean, do you know? Because we're going to need a really good one to get the guards away from her window for at least fifteen minutes. I'm going to try to get us inside and Tails is going to work on dismantling The Manor's security systems. Don't worry!" he exclaimed when he saw Tails' look of disapproval, "I know where the control room is, it's definitely a little bit underneath The Violet Duke's office, which is three corridors away from Blaze's, which is in the West Wing."

"Stalkerish much?" he muttered, "I'll handle your guards," Caleb nodded, "do you know how many of them there are?"

"Last time I checked there were around fifty all together, but there's only five surrounding Blaze's room, and you could run into a possible three or four more on the way there," he explained.

"Do you know what they're armed with?" said Tails.

"Standard guns, you would know better, spending so much time with Shadow," Silver smiled a little before going serious again, "I've seen nothing more than pistols and tazers, but most of them are trained in combat, so says Blaze."

"Are you sure you'll be alright, Caleb?" Tails asked.

"Stop babying me," he muttered, "I'm no magic combat mutant, but I can still fight… well enough."

"Just… whatever, why don't you practice on the driveway guards so that we can get in?" Silver challenge, jerking his head over to the men stationed very close to them. Caleb huffed and sauntered over to them like he had a dislocated hip. It was really amusing to watch, if he wasn't fearing so much for his safety.

"God… I haven't done this in a while…" Tails heard him mutter. And it really did make him wonder. Caleb wasn't mysterious by most standards; he just didn't want to reveal everything about himself too soon. Tails was the same. So slowly revealing an aspect of a person he'd become intrigued with was just off the edge of exciting. He liked finding out about mutant powers. He liked to experiment and take DNA samples so he could find out why one person was born this way, and why others weren't. He'd found some weird shit in his own DNA more than once, but it'd be better to save that for another time.

He walked up to the guards and started some innocent chatter with them, nothing _that _aggravating. Caleb reached up to scratch his temple, casually saying a few more words and rocking back on his heels. A smirk formed on his lips as the guard's faces became purple with absolute fury and he stumbled away laughing as they started to chase after the confusing youth.

"Wow," Silver gasped, "in all my time trying to distract the guards, they have _never _left their post that fast."

"And he didn't even use some kind of power… not one we could see anyway…" Tails murmured.

"Maybe he's a mind reader… oh for the love of Solaris, I hope not."

"I don't think so… don't you think he would have reacted to all the shit you're- no doubt- thinking about him?"

"Just shut up and let's go," Silver huffed, grabbing Tails wrist and flying over the gate.

* * *

><p><em>Don't Trust Me <em>by 3OH!3

* * *

><p>The Violet Manor was an elegantly designed building, <em>art <em>by Shadow's standards. Just shy of The Manor was a long elongated pool, a thousand purple petals floating like tiny boats across its surface. The Jacaranda trees lined the property and looked fabulous bordering the freshly cut lawns and the beds of daisies. Of course, you never saw anything like this in Crisis City, so every time that Tails was brought here he took a little time to gape at the property… and wonder how a high class girl like Blaze had met weird, naïve little Silver.

Silver wasn't allowing that though, quickly dragging him into a row of white rose bushes, ignoring how the thorns tugged at his clothing like small little claws. There were six security guards in sight, patrolling different areas of the grounds, and they had to wait until they were gone to proceed any further. Tails had to admit that in the back of his head, he kind of regretted taking this mission on, still not having healed from last night. But was there any point? He didn't know any other doctors that would treat well enough, and Vanilla had had a pathetic education, her brief three months in nursing school interrupted and destroyed when her college was burned in The Massacre.

They watched silently, wondering if they were going to have to march in themselves when Caleb vaulted over the fence, disturbing two of the trees and getting purple all over him. All of the guards turned to him, unfortunately they were on the other side of the pool and Caleb was blocked off from both sides. He ran to the side closest to the driveway and sidestepped the closest guard, twisting his wrist around the pistol and turning it so that it faced away from him. Blocking his body with the other arm, his left foot tapped the inside of the guard's heel, while his other leg rammed up into his arm. The man screamed and released the firearm so Caleb could catch it, using all his might to push the man into the water, where his tazer effectively nullified him.

"I've seen those kinds of moves before!" Silver exclaimed, watching as Caleb effectively led the rest of the surrounding guards out of The Violet Manor.

"Where?" Actually, now that Tails thought about it, they did seem mildly familiar.

"Shadow…" he trailed off, noticing that The Manor was now considerably less crowded than before. They started moving towards the main entrance, a huge archway decorated with intricate designs of the sun god, Solaris.

"S'alright to…?" Silver asked.

Tails shrugged, looking behind them to see if there were any guards coming, "I don't see why not, they're going to set off the alarm soon anyway. At least Blaze will know you're here."

Silver concentrated on the lock, using his telekinesis to slowly unhinge it. Meanwhile another set of guards were patrolling and sent their glances Tails and Silver's way, slowly starting to run towards them, "Uh oh, Silver, hurry it up there will you?"

"Ah, so he _couldn't _distract them all?"

"There are more than fifty guards on the premises!"

The door unhinged and they both slipped through, slamming the door in the guard's faces. He relocked the door and they climbed the staircase in the foyer to reach the West Wing. Tails tried not to sight-see on their way to the control room, panicking a little when the blaring alarms started to go off. All Tails could focus on was how much dirt his sneakers were leaving on the pristine floors.

"Control room!" Silver said, pushing Tails into a room heavily laden with wires and monitors. Instantly the young fox was at the surveillance units, breaking open the panels and thanking the lord he was wearing gloves. There was a huge set of wires that looked like they'd already been tampered with, and the broken bits were sparking and buzzing. Tails didn't have any doubts that if he touched it he would be electrocuted. He dismantled the alarm system by tearing out the wires used for sound projection and the communication between the speakers of The Manor. He smashed the video surveillance unit and hacked into the on board history, deleting the copies and the back up copies of everything from the last twelve hours.

He was going to head out and find Silver and Caleb when he noticed something. Peeking out from between the wires was an Extreme Gear, a beautiful design of mauve, orange and red. It was next to a computer monitor, casting the entire room in curtains of blue light. He carefully stepped over monitors to examine it, pulling out the wires that were charging it. It had a full tank and it's sleek, powerful design amazed him. He then looked over to the monitor and almost dropped the gear in shock.

He saw designs of new Extreme Gear the likes of which he had never seen before, though they did look oddly familiar. The odd, bulky design still looked incredibly fast and its specs were amazing, what made his quake and smash the closest monitor was the painted symbol on it.

It was a MeteoTech board… _Eggman's _design.

The fox scrambled towards the monitor, pulling out his phone to eject his portable USB when there was a slam at the door. He almost snapped his neck attempting to see the man before he'd grabbed the back of Tails shirt. He thrashed violently, getting the phone back into his pocket, twisting his head around to see if he was armed. He could see a pistol, but from this angle he could see the safety was still on. He twisted himself to get his arms around the man's grip, removing his gloves and protracting his claws to shred the guard's skin.

Accidentally ruining the black shirt the guard was using, he stopped immediately, shocked at what at he saw.

There was a scar. A row of tiny little bite marks indented into his forearm.

As if…

As if he'd been bitten by a fox kit.

_"Stupid mutants!"_

He stared at the soldier with wide blue eyes, forgetting the commotion happening outside as he made a dive for a memory hidden away from ten years ago.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," the soldier growled, throwing Tails back into the machinery, "_You're _the little slime-ball that gave me this scar!"**(i)**

_"__Get rid of the little one too."_

_"__Yes Eggman."_

"Well it's time to make you _pay!_" the guard advanced forward pistol aimed at his head when he realised the safety was on. He stepped forward and kicked Tails' ribs, leaning down to punch him in the solar plexus. The fox choked out a mouthful of blood, spitting out the contents.

"Tails!" Blaze called, but he still couldn't see her. The guard looked back to locate the duke's daughter, giving Tails enough time to stagger to his feet, wheezing. The guard dived at him, but Tails side stepped, sending the guard crashing into the faulty wires, electrocuting him into unconsciousness. He stood there a moment, watching the human's body twitch at odd times, but after a moment he heard a groan.

Tails really wanted to kill the man, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. His quarrel was with his former boss. Not him.

* * *

><p><em>Ignorance <em>by Paramore

* * *

><p>He raised his shirt to observe his stomach, pushing aside fur to see that his skin was starting to bruise and the blood still swished around his mouth. He spat onto one of his gloves and placed it into his pocket. He used the other to clean any blood he'd left on the floor before heading out to see Silver and Blaze waiting for him, "Sorry, the alarm was a little more complicated than I thought it would be."<p>

"C'mon! Most of those guards Heartnet lured away are heading back," Silver said, jerking his hands at the door.

"Who's 'Heartnet'?" Blaze asked but Silver just shook his head. Tails went back to fetch the gear, but as soon as Blaze's eyes fell on it she reached out. Tails handed it to her.

"Aww, I've been looking all over for this."

"It's yours?"

"Yes. I had it made while my dad wasn't looking, I would have gone to you Tails; but Dad was tailing Silver, and it could have led back to your garage."

"No! It's alright, where'd you get it?" he asked, wondering about the amazing design.

"Hey! Can we have this conversation later?" Silver asked in exasperation.

They escaped with little effort after that, dipping into one of the alleys afterwards to regroup. Caleb passed them around seven minutes later, looking relatively unscathed save for a few odd bruises and the messed up hair. It was still full of purple petals, something he would not point out because it looked absolutely hilarious.

"Oh my God, did you see that?" he asked, sounding like he was out of breath. The fox pointed back to The Manor.

"See what?" all three of them replied.

"_Tails Doll _was at The Violet Manor. He was at the opposite end of the tennis courts! And he felt pretty angry," he smirked, looking out of the alley and ducking in again as some Violet Manor guards passed.

"How do you know?" Silver asked suspiciously, "According to legend he wears a mask."

Caleb's eye twitched, recovering shakily by turning his attention towards Blaze and extending his hand, "Hi, I'm Caleb Heartnet, Silver's room-mate."

"Nice to meet you," she curtsied elegantly, something Tails had never seen her do before unless she was on television, "Silver's told me some… _'interesting' _things about you."

He turned wide-eyed on Silver and stomped his foot angrily, pointing a finger at him accusingly, "I _told _you to keep the naked pillow fights a _secret!_"

Silver spluttered indignantly, cheeks turning an embarrassing shade of red but Blaze started giggling and Caleb grinned so widely that his fangs were showing. Tails still hadn't forgotten the fox's previous demeanour, and how he'd moved to distract the others with another subject as fast as possible. He laughed cheerfully now, but there was something ominous about it.

"Blaze, what did you have to tell us?" Tails asked, flipping the situation from happy to serious in three seconds.

The cat's eyelids drooped sadly, clutching at her jacket nervously, "I haven't seen Marine in a few days. This has been the longest we've been apart since I found her. The thing is, I looked for her, when she was last spotted, at the _hospital._"

The boys around her nodded enthusiastically, but she just sighed sadly, "And all I found was this…"

There, dangling before their eyes, was a small little glass pendant in the shape of a drum kit. Tails soundlessly brought out his wallet and dialled.

_"__Oh shi-Tails! Whatcha callin' for buddy?"_

_"__Sonic! Don't answer your phone!"_

_"__Hush up Su, if I don't he'll keep callin'!"_

_"__Well then turn it __**off!**__"_

"Sonic!" Tails growled, "Where are you? We just found a medallion, one with _drums _on it, and-"

_"__**What?**__ You know what? I gotta go."_

"No you _don't!_" Tails replied exasperated. He heard gunfire in the background, and then two shocked screams, one from Marine and the other from the woman who had spoken before, 'Su' apparently.

"Sonic? Marine! _Sonic!_" he screamed into the phone, to no avail. He clenched his fists and closed the phone when the call was cut off. He took the medallion sitting in Blaze's paw and strode off, uncaring whether any of the guards saw him.

"Hey! Where ya goin'?" Caleb asked, a little confusion seeping into his voice, "There a reason to the sudden tick-off-ed-ness?"

"I'd recognise that gun fire anywhere," Tails growled, "and unfortunately, if you're still looking for the doctor, then you're going to have to come with us, or you can just wait back at Black Arms."

"No way," he shook his head, "I'm commin'." Caleb turned back to Silver and Blaze, looking rather bemused at the two foxes, "Onwards then, tally-o and all that."

"Where exactly _are _we going?" Blaze asked.

"The N-Zone."

"What?" Silver asked, bewildered, "No one goes there! It's like, one of the worst places in Crisis City, and the hang-out of-"

That's right, none other than…

"Scourge the hedgehog."

* * *

><p><em>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>The N-Zone was basically a row of boarded up shops, a couple of busted bungalows and in the centre of it all, the abandoned N-Police station. This pathetic excuse of a district was once where all the cops went with their prisoners, paperwork and donuts. But ever since they built the PoliceCourt house fortress on the old Wisp Meadow, it had become the central hub of the Suppression Squad.

Currently, on the sidewalk between the police station and a random bungalow, surrounded by gang bangers who were armed with bats and crowbars (one was armed with a shotgun), was the echidna hippy medic; Tikal, the eye-patched Doctor Quack, the solid-liquid form of Chaos; Tikal's lifelong companion, and of course, myself. Chaos could have easily escaped his pair of handcuffs, if the SS's technician, Boomer, hadn't made and placed a liquid nitrate device upon the hand cuffs. Chao's power worked best in the heat and the ice cold of the nitrate device prevented him from using his power.

It was also used as form of entertainment for the SS goons, as they sometimes activated the device to fully freeze Chaos, which according to Tikal, caused him great pain. When she tried to make them stop, the SS's second in command, the traitorous Fiona Fox, ex-FF, slapped her across the face. When Doctor Quack tried to struggle, to protect Tikal from the red fox's beating, the coyote named Patch shoved his shotgun into the duck's stomach. I had been used as a punching bag, at the hands of the big cheese himself, Scourge. The green, leather jacket-wearing hedgehog had been pissed at me because of the disrespect I had given him after my capture. Every time he slammed my head against either the wall or the black truck we had been riding in, I would say something snarky in my mother's tongue, which earned a nice blow to the back.

The only break from this torture, for all the captives, was when Scourge ordered the adopted, older sister of his girlfriend to take the prisoners to the abandoned police station's cells. The only humanoid member of the SS, Fina Fox, did as she was told.

I hadn't heard much about her, apart from the fact that she was adopted by Fiona Fox's parents when she was little. Like me, she was a half-mutant, someone who looked human but had powers like the Mobians. Her power was apparently the ability to grow a protective fur that could withstand bullets, just like my scaled arm. Her nickname, Auto Fiona, was given after she had lost her eye and arm during The Massacre. She had lost something else, or at least that's what she thought, but MK, who told me about her, didn't say what it was.

Anyway, we had expected her to be just as cruel and bitchy as her sister. But to our surprise, she arrived during our nights with food and painkillers, which practically saved Tikal's life. Having avoided capture from Eggman, then being taken in by the SS, she hadn't eaten in days and Fiona's beating hadn't done her any favours. It was a shame she was with the wrong people, like the hooded punk she was standing next to, but thanks to her I'm at full strength. I could now at least attempt to escape.

As we waited for the person who would take us to our doom, I took a quick glimpse at the SS behind me, eyeing the hip flask on Boomer's belt. Before I could do anything else, I heard the unmistakable sounds of cars. Looking up, I saw that the various trucks and cars belonged to none other than the boys in blue.

This only proved one thing for me, which is that the cops were really on Eggman's pay role. I wondered how far up the ranks this was, until I saw a familiar, hateful face as he stepped out of the car. Geoffrey St John, the ex-undercover cop of the FF, now the Chief of Police. The non-mutant skunk had been spying on the FF until he had been found out a couple of years back, and he had since risen to being the boss of the blues. How he had gotten that position was quite clear, since Eggman had been the one gunning for us docs.

Accompanied by seven, armed cops, who formed a line that covered most of the bungalow behind them, the chief said aloud, "Scourge, I see you've kept your end of the deal."

"Of course," boasted the hedgehog, who then gave a nod at Boomer. The technician nodded and began pushing me forward. I slipped up and landed on the floor, which earned a laugh from the goons and cops. Boomer grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me to my feet. I continued on my way, but not before shouting, "Anhrefn, troi ar fy marc." While bewildered faces shone from every corner, the aqua being slowly nodded.

"...I take it, that this is 'Welshscot'?" Asked John to Scourge, whom he and Fiona now stood by as they watched me approached.

"Yea," shrugged the green punk, "Or at least I think he is. Hasn't said anything but that Welsh crap of his."

I stopped, which made Boomer growl behind me, and grinned at the chief and gang couple. "Do you know what people say about the Welsh? We keep the Sabbath..." As the trio sneered at me, a small clicking reached their ears. "...And everything else we get our hands on." And that was when my hand cuffs slipped off.

Before Boomer could do or say anything, I spun round and grabbed his pistol with one hand and his hip flask in the other.

Meanwhile, Chaos spun round, his cuffed hands now visible. In one motion, I fired at the ice-inducing cuffs and drained the hip-flask in one gulp.

The effects were instantaneous. Chaos, his cuff's machine now broken, expanded his body out, causing all the SS goons to go flying in a tidal wave of water. I, now under the drunk rage of a Glasgow 1787 (a very good year), grabbed Boomer and threw him at Scourge, John and Fiona.

Going back meant being gunned down by the SS in the station, so Quack and Tikal, who had been unaffected by Chaos's attack, pelted towards the line of surprised cops, for the bungalow behind them.

Chaos, having slammed a gangster into the ground, turned towards the line to, which I was tearing apart. Scared, the cops focused their fire upon me, which scared them more as I managed to deflect the bullets with my scaled arm. Tikal and Quack managed to break through the cop line and crash through the boarded up window of the bungalow.

It was only me and Chaos, who had sent the cops flying with many broken bones, and we were doing pretty well. But help never goes amiss, as I heard high whistling, an aqua-blast that wasn't from Chaos and the sounds of two familiar guns. Turning right, I saw the fast approaching figures of the vigilante Sonic, the girl I had saved called Marine and Shade's apprentice Julie-Su.

Before I could say anything to the new arrivals, a phone rang. Sonic pulled out his phone, whilst narrowly dodging a stray bullet. "Oh shi-Tails! Whatcha callin' for buddy?"

Julie began berating him, which turned into an argument, while I turned to the station. What I saw was not good, a solid line of guns all pointing in our direction. Chaos saw this to and acted instantly. As the safety clicked, Sonic began to turn off his phone, Chaos turned into a small wave of water. He managed to wash away Sonic and his friends into the bungalow, causing two of them scream, just as the bullets went flying.

I raised my scaled arm, causing the bullets to bounce off like flies hitting a window—

_BANG_

Pain erupted throughout my body, as blood and scale flew from my arm. Another shot rang out, punching another hole, an impossible hole, through my scaled arm. Looking up, I saw that the bombardment had stopped and a red fox was walking over, a revolver in her hand. "Like that, Welshaldy?" She waved the gun in her hand. "This ain't much, except for the mutant armour piercing bullets."

Before I could move, she fired again. Her piece of special lead ran right through my scaled shoulder. I collapsed back, my world going in and out of focus. I saw Fiona standing over me, gun pointed at my head. Then another, blurred shape ran across my vision, a cry of 'traitor' and the feeling of hands pulling me across the ground.

Then... nothing...

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i) **See Chapter 1: Skin and Sins, under _All These Things I Hate Revolve Around Me_ by Bullet For My Valentine_._


	7. Words to make things Right

**domi|note **

Thanks to **Eidorian999**, **SpekSmall**, **Exploder**, **Angel-of-Energy**, **The Guy in the Background**, **HalfWright**, **JoshuathePikachu**,**WelshScot**, **LordCooler**, **superechidna**, **Fanfic412** and **DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the last chapter.

_JoshuathePikachu- _Actually, you're incredibly close.

_Fanfic412- _Well, it would be easier to trade info if you, maybe, _got _an account? Seriously, it's not that hard. But yeah, I could do with some OCs, I need other racers at the moment. But don't send in the info just yet, I'm collaborating a profile requirement for any OCs I'm putting in the story.

The representation of Tails Doll, Metal Knuckles and Metal Sonic in this story belong to **WelshScot**.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>I don't know why they call it heartbreak. It feels like every other part of my body is broken too. ~Missy Altijd<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Seven  
>.<em>  
>"And I want these words, to make things right. But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life."<br>…_  
>Let's See How Far We've Come <em>by Matchbox 20

* * *

><p>The use of an extension cable from one end of an Extreme Gear to another, to keep them locked and secured to each other, was the rider's equivalent of training wheels. One who <em>needed <em>such a device in the first place would be considered amateur, childish and uncoordinated, extremely untalented and lacking an incredible amount of the most basic skills.

And thus Caleb was not _pleased._

'Pleased' was insult, in the very form of the word. 'Pleased' and _all_ its synonym brothers including 'joyous', 'content' and 'happy', at the moment, were words derived from the very pits of Hell.

And that was why when Silver asked Caleb, as they rode along _towing _said fox behind as he tried to avoid slamming into walls; "Happy now, Heartnet?" his quick and immediate response was; "Would you do me a favour and- oh, I don't know- _stop breathing?_"

Tails, who had been trying to ignore their banter for the last thirty minutes, swerved his board to shock Caleb out of his hissy fit. The violent lurch of his Extreme Gear mirrored in the way that the older fox's did, making him cry out in protest. Silver laughed at his misfortune, prompting Caleb to duck down and pick up a rock, throwing it at Silver's head. He stopped jeering when the granite hit him in the side of the temple, too distracted to use telekinesis to stop it. He was about to return the favour when Blaze hissed at him, making him growl moodily and continue on in silence until the next time one of them decided to start a fight.

He looked down at his phone, watching as the signal for Sonic's cell became stronger and stronger, while the surroundings started to become more like barren wasteland than barren city. He hated being out here… The last time he had moved into the N-Zone was a year ago for…

He sniffed, adjusting his goggles around his eyes. He did not want to relive his moments here in the N-Zone, there was a time for that and now was not it.

They happened upon Sonic's cell phone in some soft soil right behind a fallen tree. There were scuff marks on the ground where boots had been dragged through the soil and skid marks where it looked like Sonic had been trying to put up a fight and failing too. Tails pocketed Sonic's phone and then turned back to the group. Blaze and Caleb had made themselves comfortable on a tree and had started discussing why they were here. It pissed Tails off to some extent, given that he had been trying to weasel the information out of him since morning. Silver was staring at them fuming.

"Yeah, they were dragged away. It looks like they've been captured." Tails concluded, watching the others mull this information over.

"If Sonic was captured, then how are the rest of us going to make it there?" Blaze asked, her violet tail flicking from side to side anxiously. She was looking around at the dilapidated buildings surrounding them, maybe trying to remember what it had been like ten years ago. The N-Zone had once been the Prison District, where Soleanna criminals were kept under lock and key. But ever since they'd built the new court houses in the Wisp Meadow, the N-Zone had become the main hang out of the Suppression Squad, led by none other than Scourge the hedgehog.

Tails shuddered at the name, anger welling up inside of him. He'd encountered Scourge, once, twice, and they weren't memories he would like to relive. He clenched his fists tightly, his heart feeling repressed and heavy as he thought over his next words.

"Lucky for you'se, I'm smarter than Sonic," he said calmly, not at all boasting. It was just a simple fact. Still, anything said like _that _could be taken the wrong way. He wouldn't have said it normally, but these circumstances felt different… _he _felt different.

"And so modest too," Caleb rolled his eyes, the corner of his lips lifting, "but you're probably right."

"Mm," Blaze agreed, "your brains, doused with a little common sense, should be more than enough to get them out of this situation."

"Got a plan yet, Tails?" Silver said enthusiastically.

"Well…" he trailed off, noticing something strange. Three sets of eyes were locked onto him like lost children, which didn't sound right in any respect. They were all sixteen (Tails had gotten Caleb's age from his license, but he didn't well _act _like his age, either too old or too young) all _older _than him and looking up to him as if he was, as if he was Sonic himself. Sure, it didn't feel right, having this power, but… it kind of felt… kind of _good. _He shook the thought away and continued his sentence, "We're going to have to locate them first, but keep going under eighty-five kays so that the engine stays as quiet as possible."

"Heartnet won't have to worry about that," Silver snickered.

"Ever had a foot shoved so far up your ass you were shitting out canvas for a week?"

"Quit it!"

At first Tails thought that Blaze had been trying to stop the two immaturities from bickering further, but even when they fell silent Blaze still kept her gloved finger to her lips, her cat ears twitching wildly. As soon as he focused on listening, he found that he couldn't help himself either, hearing the crunching of footsteps too close to still escape visibility.

But as soon as Tails whirled around he found himself face to face with a gleaming set of silver claws. His heart jolted as if he was suddenly struck by electricity, jerking back over the skid marks they had been inspecting earlier. The first things that he registered were eyes of a brilliant technicolour green. They were bright, like, like _acid._ Aside that was hair that was _blaring_, obscene and red like police sirens, eye-catching and unforgettable. Though he'd never seen the man before in his life, never on Google, nor the television, he immediately knew who he was.

He breathed, silently and shakily, as if his wind pipe was a crag of spiky mountains, "Metal Knuckles…"

The glowing green orbs widened from their narrowed glare, and the steel fists swung by his hips once more. He was a _human_. Even though the legends had depicted this already, Tails still had to mentally berate himself for acting like a slack-jawed idiot.

Metal Knuckles' legend went a little something like this; hours before The Massacre, the fabled Tails Doll (although he wasn't called that at the time, all records of who he was were destroyed though, along with his brothers) refused to cooperate with Eggman's scheme. Metal Sonic didn't agree with him, and decided to punish his brother for his so-called insolence, turning him into the _first _living weapon used against the mutants, becoming a human Molotov cocktail and murdering thousands in the process. Metal Knuckles was so enraged by what Metal Sonic had done, that he beat his former comrade within an inch of his life, before trying to escape the Egg Fortress, loosing his hands in the process as all the robots in the vicinity turned against him. Since then it'd been said that he was running a pro-mutant gang somewhere in The Underground.

Standing in front of him was a pockmarked man with a beard and a pretty cool hat, with an expression worn and tired from constant battle. He didn't miss the quicksilver glint of his mechanical appendages though, wondering where he had found artificial limbs so brilliantly crafted. When he spoke, it sounded like he'd dragged his vocal chords across a desert. Dry, dusty and cactus-ridden.

"Oh good, we don't need to get acquainted then, Prower. A _dangerous _game you're playing, announcing your inhibition to the world, with Eggman watchin' of all things," the man grinned, roughing up Tails hair a bit, as if you would an affectionate nephew, "Yer one crazy little dare-devil, just like your blue friend."

Snapped out of his fear by the mention of his best friend, the kitsune glanced up at the man, sliding a careful eye over the suspicious company behind him, "Do you _know _where Sonic is?"

"My pals here," he gestured towards a female echidna in purple-black armour and a gizoid with large blue lenses for eyes, "have determined they're being held captive somewhere around the abandoned prison, not in it, just really close."

"Why would you be looking for Sonic?" he asked inquisitively, all fear replaced by intrigue, but it seemed that his companions seemed less eager to participate in the conversation with him.

"He's with one of my crew, a young lady by the name of Julie-"

"-Su?" Tails interrupted, fear lancing down his spine when he saw how many of Metal Knuckles crew stepped back as if he had committed some great sacrilege, "But Sonic said that she was dea-"

"But she isn't," he cut him off, "she's been captured, thanks to your friend, and the little tag-a-long he brought with him."

Tails fur bristled. He had a feeling that he should be defending his friend, but nothing came to mind. It was true, they had royally screwed up this time and there was a large possibility that it had been Sonic's fault. But he couldn't bring himself to blame his friends, because even _Sonic_ wouldn't fall into this trap if he knew who had been behind it. The Blue Blur hated Scourge more than he hated water, maybe as much as he hated _prejudice_, and _that _was saying something.

"And… you're here to rescue her, right?"

"No duh, kiddo. Her, my medic Tikal, plus her jelly friend, Chaos and Doctor Quack. The only reason we came upon you'se in the first place was because Emerl here," he jerked a mechanical thumb at the confused looking robot, "sensed danger."

"Stop it, MK," said the female echidna, fingering the supposed firearm at her side. Tails couldn't tell what model it was by the shape. It was probably customised or something, "he took down one of the Egg Giants by himself, surrounded with flames. Do you remember what you told _me _about underestimation?"

"Oh hush girl," he said good-naturedly, but she didn't seem as amused by this, "you guys actually planned to go up against the Suppression Squad by yourselves?"

Tails was about to answer, but it seemed like Silver had located his voice and decided to use it, "We're stronger than we look."

"Not a lot, coming from you." He didn't need to turn around to know who'd said that.

"We'd be grateful for your assistance, Metal Knuckles Sir," said Blaze, surprising Tails when she came up beside the young kit. Out of all the people in this little gathering, Blaze and her royal conduct looked the most out of place.

"Well, if it ain't the duchess herself, how are you doing, Lady Violet?" 'Lady Violet' was a nickname Blaze had acquired by slowly becoming a recluse in the midst of her own walls. Little did the public know that her father was just far too overprotective, and because of him his daughter had become something like an enigma to the rest of Soleanna society.

"My mechanic has been captured, and I'd greatly appreciate it if we saved the pleasantries for later, when they're all safe and sound."

"Here, here!" said Caleb.

"Okay then," the red headed man said, waving over the rest of his comrades, "let's get going."

* * *

><p><em>Toxic (Cover) <em>by A Static Lullaby

* * *

><p>He'd seen scenes like these, when he had been obsessed with such human classics as C.S.I., Criminal Minds and the like. What they didn't like to point out was the absolute nervousness of the cops before they stormed the area. Blaze and Silver, to one side of him, weren't helping one bit being the epitome of cool, though they might have just been following Metal Knuckles' lead. At least Caleb had the decency to twitch or look back nervously once in a while.<p>

In the back of his mind, Tails still couldn't believe he was going against the Suppression Squad with the famous urban legend Metal Knuckles. It was just that he'd never imagined himself in this kind of situation, never something so dangerous, so… _thrilling. Because _he couldn't imagine it, was one of the reasons he had taken up Extreme Gear in the first place (apart from the _massive _profit).

They were looking at a closed up strip of boardwalk, the very definition of a ghost town, (like something out of a cheesy Western movie) except for the wet ground. He wondered how that had happened. The members of the Suppression Squad and the _cops _(of all people) either surrounded the set of captives, or wandered the area making sure earlier threats were intercepted before they became too much of a nuisance. So far, neither Tails' operatives nor Metal Knuckles' had been found, despite spreading out and observing the situation from different angles.

Tails was craning his head, and holding his breath without even thinking about it. He remembered most of the members, and it hadn't changed much from the last time he'd encountered them. He was thrown for a loop when he spied a human woman amongst their ranks with beautiful red-brown hair. For a second he wondered how a lady like her could survive among a pack of criminals, when she turned around and he realised her left arm and eye were bionic. She made her way into one of the bungalows that wasn't boarded up, where he caught a glimpse of something glowing and blue.

Caleb crammed himself in between Tails and Metal Knuckles, extending his stupid, jangling, bracelet-clad hand in the direction of a gap between the buildings where three of the Suppression Squad were chatting and occasionally glancing over to members grouped around something. The members in the middle were making such a tight knit group that they couldn't see whatever they were surrounding. He could hear them well enough though.

"Be best to hit at those blokes over there," Caleb said.

"Why?" Metal Knuckles rasped, a little confused as to why he should consider anything the teenager was saying.

"See? They couldn't give a rat's arse what's happenin' behind them, firstly because whatever ruckus in the middle is more interesting, plus they've got three blighters over there, makin' 'em feel extra secure, ya get me?"

Tails shrugged, "He's got a point." He returned his attention back towards the middle group, which had started to disband. Stuck in the middle were Sonic, a pink echidna he supposed was Julie-Su, and Marine, tied to each other with rope.

One of the SS members came awfully close to where they were hiding, muttering something to another loud enough for them to hear, "If they wanted the wranga alive, Scourge shouldn'ta let his girl handle the gun."

Caleb gasped and clutched Tails shoulders, "Oh God, _he's dead! _I came over to this cesspool for nothing!"

"How do you know it's him?" the little fox asked, annoyed that his brains were being shaken out of place.

"Did you hear 'em? They said 'wranga', are you listening man?" Caleb sounded hysterical, on the edge of pulling his 'drama queen' act. But this was neither the time nor the place to be acting like an idiot.

"I don't even know what 'wranga' means!" he exclaimed, but was quickly shushed by the rest of Metal Knuckles' gang.

"Downunda slang for 'red-headed person'. God, I can't believe this."

"Ya don't _sound_ like you're from Downunda," Silver noted curiously.

"… _Nah,_" he replied sarcastically, "I read a lot of the literature," he said this dismissively, sighing in disappointment, "Listen, I'm up for playing 'distraction' again but you've got to disarm the chick with the shotgun."

"Who's the-?" he was shocked into silence when the door swung open and _she _stepped out. Still as beautiful, dark and mysterious as she was the last time he saw her, Fiona Fox walked with the grace of some fallen angel. His beat was cajoled out of its frozen state, kick starting until it was thrumming at a mile a minute. Even as his heart shred itself into tiny little pieces, he still found himself mesmerised by the way her hips swung like a pendulum, and the fluttering of her eyelashes as they shielded deep blue eyes, pure once and now tainted with evil. The large firearm at her side was probably the one Caleb had been referring to.

"Oi, Prower!"

"Hu-what?"

"C'mon, Tails," said Silver, jerking his head in the direction of the captured trio, "we're gonna be off soon. Get your head in gear."

"Alright. Once the white one's rid 'em all of weapons, Snippy'll play bait, and once everyone's got their attention to suppress them, meanin' Lady Violet needs to steal their attention. After Prower disarms Ms. Fox, we'll need him and Snippy working on the captives, Sonic first and then the doctors. Everythin' square?"

"Not _square_ at all! Trapezium-shaped, if you will. I oppose to the nickname 'Snippy'!" Caleb whined.

"It's better than 'The White One'" Silver rolled his eyes.

"No!" Tails protested, "I can't-!"

"Okay?" Metal Knuckles said, because Tails protests sounded like mere whispers to him, "Ready and _GO!_"

Before he could stop them, Silver and Caleb had stormed onto the scene, colouring the blank atmosphere with slashes of bright blue light as he lifted whatever weapons he could into the air, and hurtled them away in arcs, creating a spider-like design of the battle field. Anyone that Caleb passed was suddenly struck with a jeering sense of confusion, before they decided to chase after him barehanded, dropping whatever weapon that Silver hadn't sent away in an attempt to catch him.

Finding himself alone behind the broken tree they had been using for cover, he jumped over it and made a quick dash for Sonic, Julie-Su and Marine.

"Tails!" Sonic and Marine exclaimed happily.

His eyes followed the rope's knots, figuring out exactly where to start untying them. He tackled them on Julie-Su's side first, Marine and the echidna moving aside to allow him access.

"Hi, I'm Julie-Su."

"Tails," he offered, as he loosened the bonds and then ducked over to the knots between Marine and Sonic, "Nice to meet you," he grunted, pulling at a particularly tight not, "I've heard good things… in past tense that is."

"Strange that, I've heard _nothing _about you," she replied, to which Sonic promptly slammed the nearest available body part into her back, which happened to be his shoulder.

"Quit it, Su, this isn't exactly the time and place."

Once one of Julie's hands were free, she rubbed at her back, annoyed, "Ouch, geez Sonic, _real _mature. Are you one to forget that you're a hedgehog? Your spikes hurt."

"I'll second that motion," Marine moaned in pain.

Caleb reached them just as Blaze unleased a flurry of red-hot flames, effectively making a barrier in the dirt for them, cutting them off from most of the Suppression members, "You've almost got them untied, I'll head into the bungalow and see to the doctors."

Tails nodded and with one last tug, got Sonic, Julie-Su and Marine free. Sonic and the pink echidna joined in the fighting, while Marine followed Caleb into the bungalow. He was about to follow them in when he was stopped short by the sight of three figures running out of the alleyway, one of them alone would have been enough to shock him, all three was monumental.

Firstly there was Scourge the hedgehog, gangster mob boss with a deep secret affiliation with Sonic not many knew about. As soon as the green hedgehog had caught sight of the blue speedster he fell into a spin dash and rammed into him as hard as he could. The second was the lovely Fiona Fox, who he had spotted earlier, but this time she spotted him, and started walking over. The third, he didn't care for so much, but was still a significant figurehead; Geoffrey St. John, the police chief himself, but Tails wasn't that surprised to see that the skunk had gone 'bad cop' on them.

"Hello, Prower," Fiona purred, striding up to him as if she had casually seen him on the street instead of in the middle of a war-zone, "aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

* * *

><p><em>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>The bungalow could be described in two words: cluttered and cramped. It was like someone knocked out the walls of the first floor of a house, resulting in a kitchen, bedroom and living room being shoved into a single space. On the left wall, which was rotting and peeling, there was an array of broken furniture, the most notable being a large and rusty wine rack.<p>

Against the back wall, near a broken fridge and oven, was Tikal, Quack and the recently frozen body of Chaos. After Chaos had tried to save Sonic and his friends, by washing into the bungalow where Quack and Tikal had taken refuge in, the aqua-being was taken by surprise by a wet and angry Boomer. The evil technician, furious that Welshscot had used him to escape, had taken his revenge out on Chaos, by using an improvised, cryogenic grenade, which froze the jelly being in place.

Trapped and outnumbered, the SS managed to overwhelm Sonic and his friends, who were now tied up outside somewhere. But the thing that was causing Tikal to silently cry and make Quack hand his head so low, was the body of Welshscot, which was lying spread-eagled on the dirty, dust-coated bed. The two doctors didn't know what exactly happened, but from the gunshots they heard and they way they were talking about 'da boss' girl', they gathered that Fiona had managed to gun the hybrid down. This seemed like a regular thing, but when they noticed that the bullet wounds were on his right arm, his bullet-proof scaled arm, it raised a mystery on how Fiona had managed to do something that other gun-toting gang bangers hadn't done.

Standing near the door was Boomer and Patch, one armed with a pistol that was trained upon Chaos while the other was wielding a shotgun. Patch was observing the still corpse of the red head, muttering, "Geez, trust the boss' bitch to screw up the deal. Her sister, Auto Fiona, should have stopped her, instead of just saving his pretty little head. I mean, Fiona was getting a kick out of it. Did you hear her call Auto a 'traitor'?"

Boomer, who was still glaring at the icicle, grunted, "Of course I did. But that's not what I'm concerned with. We were showering this guy with all the guns you could think off and those scales of his blocked them all. How did her gun work when ours didn't?"

"Well," Patch began, turning his head to check behind outside for eves-droppers. He then, ignoring the fact that the doctor's were in ear shot, whispered, "Don't tell her I said this, but I once overheard her talking to the boss. She said, 'if my adoptive sis gives us trouble, I got just the thing that'll make her bullet-proof fur trick useless'."

Boomer now seemed interested, "What? You mean that shotgun was for Auto?" he paused, like he was deep in thought, before laughing, "Ha, that makes sense. That guy's arm must have the same properties as Auto's re-grow able fur. Now we know what'll be comin' to her if she tries to cross the boss."

Speak of the Devil, the red-brown haired human walked into the bungalow. Her bionic arm at her side and her electronic optic aimed at the tied up doctors and frozen Chaos, whilst carrying a backpack she had confiscated off the raccoon they had just captured. Then both her normal eye and metal one turned to Welshscot's limp body, and a determined look spread across her face.

"Hey, Auto," greeted Patch, in a taunting, patronising sort of way, "aren't you supposed to be with our new guests? You don't wanna piss off your sister again, do y—" he was cut off, as a bionic fist slammed into his gullet, causing him to fall to the ground, choking and wheezing. Boomer, before he realised what had happened, was taken by surprise as a burst of red, blinding light emitted from Auto's eye piece. As he knelt to the floor, clutching at his eyes in pain, she raised her foot and delivered an axe kick upon the technician's head.

With the only guards now unconscious, Auto Fiona hurried over and began freeing the medics, who were still goggling at her for attacking her own men. When they were held at the Police Fortress, she had given them food and medicine that had practically save Tikal's life. But even so, the hippy echidna still asked the woman, as she began to de-frost Chaos, "Why, Auto Fiona, why are you helping us? Why are you turning on your gang, your sister?"

She aimed her mechanical eye at Tikal, while pulling out the thing that kept Chaos frozen, and replied, "I am only Fiona's sister by adoption. She is as much family to me as the rest of these goons. I always knew I'd leave one day, and since I don't want the only people who heal sick and wounded mutants to be handed over to the police, today's a good day to leave and give them a nice kick in the crotch at the same time. And please, my name is Fina." As she finished, Chaos's last icicle dropped to the floor. He jumped into the air in the shape of a puddle, and then landed back down in his normal form. He then turned to Auto and gave her a thumbs up. If she was ok with Chaos and Tikal, then Quack would trust her as well.

Their thoughts were interrupted, as loud crashes filled the air. Turning to the door, they saw that objects, covered in a shiny, mysterious aura, were hurtling themselves everywhere. Fina tore her eyes away and began running to the grimy bed, shouting, "Come on! It looks like more rescuers are coming! Help me revive this guy so we don't have to carry him!"

Tikal, who was running to the bed with the other two, gasped, "What? Welshscot's alive? But I thought Fiona killed him..?"

Fina shook her head, swinging her backpack onto the bed, and explained, "No, I stopped her from putting a bullet in his skull and convinced her that he was already dead. He's only unconscious, but he needs medical treatment, ASAP. Luckily..." She pried open the rucksack, revealing its contents of medicines, bandages and other medical equipment. "...I found this. That raccoon was carrying it, so hopefully we can get him up on his feet soon."

Quack shook his head. "No, it's too dangerous to try and take the bullets out here. This place isn't clean and I don't want to risk infecting him." He closed the rucksack and handed it back to Fina. "Keep these with you, we will definitely need them later."

Just then, the raccoon and a fox they hadn't seen before charged into the bungalow. The raccoon was about to fire off a ball of water at Fina, when Tikal cried out, "Wait, she's on our side! She was the one who knocked out the guards." She pointed at the two guards, who were literally at the feet of the new fox and raccoon.

The fox turned to the raccoon, saying, "She's telling the truth. Drop that energy shit before you go blasting the ones we came to save." The raccoon glared at him, but lowered her hand all the same.

Then, from beside the bed, Quack clapped his hand together, exclaiming, "I've got it! We need whiskey!"

The fox raised an eye brow, "Whiskey? We need to escape, not get drunk."

Fina ran over to the door, stopping on the way to pick up Patch's shotgun. On the way out, she looked back and yelled, "I'm gonna help keep the SS busy! Get Welshscot conscious and move out as soon as you can!"

The fox's ears shot up at the sound of the name. "What? I thought he was dead?" He ran over to the bed, where the ginger-headed man lay unconscious. Looking down at him, he muttered, "Finally, I've found you." After a few seconds of staring, he looked up at Quack, asking, "What do you need whiskey for?"

"He has a reaction to the stuff," explained the duck doctor. "It will be more than enough to wake him. I think Boomer had a hip flask full of the stuff. Let's hope Welsh didn't drink it all."

Marine, who was still standing by the door, bent down and unclipped the hip flask from Boomer's belt. She ran over to the bed, a look of misgiving upon her face. "It feels empty. I don't think there will be enough Whiskey here to—"

But a hand suddenly shot up and snatched the hip flask out of her hand. As fast as a bullet, whilst sill lying on his back, Welsh's left hand raised the flask over his lips. A single drop dribbled out and landed right onto his tongue. Instantly, the man shot up; his grey eyes wide with a crazy look in his eye.

He looked round at his entourage, and garbled, "Idon'thavemuchtimesoI'lltellyouthis. . . . !"

When they all looked curelessly at him, he pointed his left hand at the wine rack, saying, "Wine rack, whiskey, NOW!" He then keeled back over, unconscious once more.

Marine and Caleb exchanged a startled look before heading to the rack. In his mind, Caleb thought, "I hope this won't be a habit. I need his help and I don't want to spend most of my time running to the liquor store." He then knelt down by the rack and began sorting through the bottles, wondering if a white Glyndwr would do.

* * *

><p><strong>(revised March 16<strong>**th****, 2012)**


	8. Waiting on a Different Story

**domi|note**

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **SmallSpek**, **Exploder**, **raginrad77**, **superechidna**, **LordCooler**, **JoshuathePikachu**, **DaddlerTheDalek**,**WelshScot** and **kobiee** for reviewing the last chapter.

_JoshuathePikachu- _Why yes'm, our favourite little hero is in a tight spot isn't he?

Representation of Metal Knuckles/Scourge/Auto Fiona belongs to **WelshScot**.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Our siblings push buttons that cast us in roles we felt sure we had let go of long ago - the baby, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the avoider... It doesn't seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we've traveled. ~Jane Mersky Leder<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Eight<br>_.  
>"It's not like you to say sorry. I was waiting on a different story, this time I'm mistaken."<br>_...  
>Far From Never by The Pretty Reckless<em>

* * *

><p>He felt like a child.<p>

She'd always managed to make him feel this way, and he absolutely despised it. He clenched his fists and planted his feet firmly onto the ground, making sure that he was blocking the exit to the bungalow the doctors were in. He heard a crash from inside which sounded like broken glass, but decided it better not to whip his head around, keeping his eyes trained on the vixen he had once admired so much.

"How have you been, Tails?" she asked slowly, her voice smooth and tantalizing, but he didn't want that distracting him now, as she side stepped in circles in an attempt to find a way around him.

"Don't _call_ me that! Only my friends call me Tails," he demanded, scowling.

"I was your friend," she pouted, cerulean eyes becoming big and wide in the way he remembered he once could not resist. His heart thrummed again, and his cheeks lit up, but he refused to be swayed by her coy tricks, "_more_ than a friend, from your perspective anyway."

_"__Shut up!"_

_"__Oh," _she fanned herself with her hand, "looks like someone's developed an _attitude_ while I've been gone."

"A lot of stuff's gone down," he spat, "and I'm hopefully not as stupid and naïve as I used to be."

"Are you kidding?" she laughed, "I've seen what you've been doing on the news lately, announcing war on Eggman is the stupidest thing you could have done."

"Who are you to say if Eggman can or can't be defeated?" and he was kind of starting to believe his own words. Sure, that night, when he had said what he'd said at Megalo Station, he was mostly doing it on a whim, fuelled by adrenaline and hatred. He was paying for it now, being the centre of attention instead of Sonic, who was used to these kinds of things. But actually seeing the way people looked down on his declaration was a different story, the amount of _fear _Eggman instilled in people was ridiculous. He didn't see how people like Sonic and Metal Knuckles existed when there was so much hatred in the world directed _their _way.

She threw her hands up in the air, "He'll die one day and then we'll all be free."

Tails crossed his arms over his chest, "Not as long as there are people in the world that think like him."

"You know what?" Fiona's coy, seductive nature changed now into something vicious and terrible, baring her fangs in a snarl, "You're still _too young _to understand! There is no way a twerp like you, not even a debonair like Sonic, or an enigma like _Shadow_, could _defeat _Eggman. That's why it's survival of the fittest around here, and _that's why_ you're still the stupid, naïve child I ditched to be with Scourge."

And there it was. The heartache. The pain. Why did everyone want to cut at him so? Was he really _that _despicable?

"_Shut up!" _he cried, "Seriously? That's not even his real name. Scourge ran away from his problems, so I don't see how leaving us…" _leaving me, _"benefitted you in any form."

Out of absolutely nowhere, a flash of green quills pounced and rammed into his body at lightning speed, knocking him to the ground. In that moment he was completely aware of the fact that he could have broken a rib, flashes of the robot ramming him into the tree, and of the former soldier-turned-guard kicking and punching his stomach so hard he couldn't breathe, replayed in his head. His vision came to him in waves of clarity; blurry, better, durable. But he was too late, Fiona and Scourge were towering over him with the most derogatory smiles. They made him feel like complete and utter crap.

"Well lookie here, Fi, it's that pathetic little boy-toy that used to tail you a few years ago."

"That's putting it mildly," she scoffed, leaning down and tracing his cheek gently with her hand, "truth is Tails…" she leant down to whisper in his ear, "you _just. Aren't. Good enough_."

Scourge crushed one of his tails under his boots, making him scream in pain while Fiona stood up and kicked the muddy soil into his face, effectively blinding him. Blood swashed around in his mouth and he spit into the ground seconds before his head was slammed into it. He struggled under the weight, lungs about to give out, he needed to breathe. He forced his arms to heave up, taking in another breath before a studded boot collided with his forearm and another into his thigh, completely crushing Sonic's phone. He'd _heard _something that didn't sound right. And he just knew it didn't belong to Scourge. The pain suffocated him in a blanket, maybe not a broken bone, but something was definitely wrong with his right hand.

He heard a high shrill vibrato that normally accompanied one of Sonic's spin dashes, and as quick as the weight had come, it was now gone. He heaved himself up as fast as his body would allow, his whole being throbbing endlessly, protesting the sudden movements. But he was in the middle of a battlefield, he needed to get up. He turned around, watching the carnage ensue as he tried to catch sight of Sonic. He was fighting both Fiona and Scourge head on, but things were taking a turn for the worse, the ground was starting to shake with the force of Scourge's attacks.

He reached into his pockets, pulling out the broken pieces of Sonic's cell phone as well as the drum amulet that he'd taken from Blaze earlier. The pendant shone in the light and apparently caught Scourge's attention, as in seconds, he had knocked Tails to the ground again, grinding his other tail into mud with his boots, making Tails scream again. It was a piercing cry that made the rest of the Suppression Squad yell in triumph.

"Hey! Where'd you get this, Runt?" he asked, dangling the shiny transparency in his face, but Tails was too busy blinking back tears.

Another blue streak cut across his vision and he made out Sonic's face through the gunk in his eyes, "Fuck _off, _Ma-!"

He was promptly interrupted again; he suspected Scourge had gained the upper hand, "That's _not _my name anymore!"

Tails was left on his own again, trying to gain footing while in an almost unbearable amount of pain. Emerl appeared before him, having run right through Blaze's flame barrier to come to him. When he tried to speak the sound came out distorted and weird. Tails pointed over to the bungalow porch and before he could even protest, the robot was carrying him over and setting him on the stairs. To return the favour, he slowly opened up the back of the robot's circuitry (one-handed) and rewired the voice control panel, placing it back where it should be. Emerl's voice rung through the air properly again, but the first words came and shocked him into silence.

"I remember the skunk." Geoffrey.

He waited the longest time before replying, "You do?"

"Yes! When I was on Eggman's forces, he served under him."

"Go tell Metal Knuckles, quick!" he sent him off, and dragged himself into the bungalow to hide for a bit and evaluate his injuries.

The 'wranga' was lying on the bed unconscious, three bleeding holes in his arm. The glowing blue substance was next to Dr. Quack and Tikal, another echidna Sonic had told him died in The Massacre. Caleb was with them also, riffling through a shelf of old wine bottles. When the door opened he sprung up to help, seemingly the only one in the room that wasn't injured, "Hells bells, Prower, what the fuck did you do to yourself?"

He shook his head; he didn't want to speak about that. Caleb got it instantly and went over to help him stand up, setting him on the side of the bed WelshScot was not occupying. He sent a curious glance over to Tikal and… whoever the mutant made of jelly was. The older fox got the look and nodded over to them, "Echidna's Tikal, the one made out of water is Chaos. Marine ran out to join the fight a second ago, crazy chick. They're looking for the right alcohol to disinfect Welshscot's wounds."

"Why does it have to be the 'right' one?" he rasped, immediately catching Doctor Quack's attention. The duck waddled over and immediately started to inspect Tails' injuries, prodding and bending some bones to where they should have been.

"Well, there is no 'right' one, as they're trying to disinfect the bullet wounds. But there is a 'better' one. They're looking for Scotch so that he'll heal up better," the fox explained, "he's not dead though, thank Solaris for that."

Tails winced and continued to wipe away the muck on his face, he got the gloves out from his back pockets where he'd left them and used the clean sides to clear his vision, tossing them in a corner under the brick-a-brack. Outside the battle raged on, and they had to move to the floor when the windows were shot down, Tikal and Chaos still working just as hard as Dr. Quack. Caleb made his exit, saying he'd protect the bungalow from outside.

"Spagonian, Spagonian, Adabat, Apotos, Apotos… this is vinegar, Mazuri," Tikal gasped and held a bottle in the air, "Scotch! Found it!" but the victory was short lived as it was smashed into pieces by a stray bullet. They sighed and continued working, "Chun-nan, Spagonian..."

"I'm not gonna pretty it up for you boy," Doctor Quack said, his one good eye locking with Tails, "your radius has detached from the trachlea, and if I don't pop it back in now, it won't heal right."

Tails pulled the edge of his flannel over his hand and bit the material, mumbling, "Go ahead, Doc."

He paused a second before heading over the wine rack, picking out one of the bottles, "I'd recommend drinking some of this. Actually, I don't, but these are odd circumstances."

He uncorked the bottle and Tails gulped some down reluctantly, trying not to choke as the liquid burned through his throat. The doctor didn't give him any warning, gripping his arm and pushing the bone back in place. Tails filled the room with an earth-shattering scream, as the pain lanced through his body, so intense that he thought he might have blacked out for a few seconds. When he registered his physical body again, he panted to deal with the throbbing lances of fire that raced through his skin.

They still hadn't found the right bottle when the noise from outside abruptly stopped, gun shots ceased and the only voice filtering across the battle field was Geoffrey's. Chaos helped Doctor Quack heave Tails onto the bed without harming him too much, and so he could see what was happening out the window. There was a large crowd of fighters, all looking in the same direction. He saw Caleb swaying drunkenly a few meters away; he spotted Marine trying to steady him. Blaze looked like she'd been frozen in the middle of releasing fire and Silver was holding Geoffrey St. John in a hold of blue light. Scourge and Sonic were on opposite sides of Metal Knuckles, trying to get at each other like naughty children.

"You two will _stop it _or I _will _tell you-know-who!" he demanded, and Sonic and Scourge stopped, they continued to seethe at each other though, "Your common enemy here is _this _lunatic, who has stolen the pro-mutant doctors _and _doesn't have Scourge's money, so stop fighting each other. St. John here is in cahoots with _Eggman! _He tricked Scourge into rounding up the pro-mutant doctors for profit, but he _actually _meant to sell them to Eggman. The only reason that Sonic was here in the first place, was because Marine, one of Welshscot's accomplices, went to Sonic for help. My group actually managed to follow through pieces of evidence left by the Suppression Squad's work."

And it was revealed there. Everything suddenly made sense. Geoffrey was the ultimate mastermind behind all of this. Traitorous dog… um… he meant _skunk. _Eggman had been trying to prove that anyone supporting the mutants during the Soleanna Grand Prix were going to get hurt, and everyone around them too.

"Bitch," said Scourge.

"Asshole."

"_Coward."_

_"__Delinquent," _Sonic seethed, angrier than he'd seen him in years. The Blue Blur heaved in a breath though, and was the first to regain his composure. He fished something out of his pocket and hung it before Scourge, so that he could reach it, but couldn't attack Sonic without facing Metal Knuckle's wrath.

From his vantage point, he couldn't see very well, but he thought Scourge's expression softened as he took the shiny medallion in his hand, putting it next to the drum-shaped ones hanging from his neck. They were silent for a long moment, even Geoffrey stopped fighting Silver's invisible bonds to stare at them. Sonic and Scourge closed their eyes, but when they opened them again, they were both smiling.

"What happened to your hair?" Sonic asked.

"What happened to your stomach fat?" Scourge replied, in a way that was snippy, but still mildly affectionate.

"You're mean," the blue hedgehog chuckled good naturedly, "she loved you too. And _she _would have wanted us to share it."

The green hedgehog scoffed, "Yeah, whatever."

Caleb whispered something to Marine, and she just waved him off dismissively.

"Silv," Sonic said, "let him go," he turned to Scourge, "we're giving him a ten second head start."

It was then, Tails realised, that they had effectively nullified the entire police force, and Geoffrey was by himself. So when Silver released the scared skunk, the police chief was on his own. Scourge turned to Sonic and pocketed the amulet, "We're just pulling this truce out of our asses because St. John over there is a dick. We'll still be seeing you in the Prix. Tell your doctors to watch themselves, life is gonna get harder for them, and tell your sidekick to _control _himself. _Other_ mutants are getting punished for what he's saying on the news. This Grand Prix is throwing absolutely _everyone _for a loop."

"Tails is _not _my sidekick, and _what? _He doesn't even _like _publicity."

That was going to be a difficult one to explain later.

Scourge rolled his eyes, "It'll be all over the internet when you get home. Now…" he turned in the direction the skunk had run away in, "I think it's been more than ten seconds."

"Oh you're right!"

Scourge stepped forward, and the entire battle field seemed to rock with the impact. Sonic's footing slipped but he seemed happy and cheery again, giving the group of fighters a thumbs-up before he and Scourge zoomed off after the skunk that was, no doubt, pissing himself in fright.

* * *

><p><em>How You Remind Me <em>by Nickelback

* * *

><p>Ten minutes later, Fiona walked into the bungalow, weaponless, but still a threat. Silver had been assigned as his bodyguard, and stepped into a battle stance at the sight of her.<p>

"Calm down, hedgehog."

Fiona sent Tails a look of impatience and Tails told Silver to stand down. He was honestly curious as to what Fiona had to say. Even if he knew he might get hurt in the process. He'd done it before; he'd let his guard down for her, and he'd been shot down every single time.

"How are you doing?" she asked, with a note that just _might _have been sincerity.

"Better. No thanks to you and your," he spat; he didn't feel like obliging polite company. It was hardly anything short of what she deserved, _"boyfriend."_

"Okay listen, Tails, I really am sorry for the shit that I said."

"No you're not." Because she wasn't.

"Alright, maybe I wasn't. But… okay," she heaved in a breath, "I don't want you to, you know, _lament_ about what you could have had with me."

"You're getting a bit of a big head there, Fi," he replied, "my life does not revolve around you."

She scowled, unwilling to play truce anymore, "You should have seen your face. Looked like I'd ripped your heart in half." Tails smirked to cover up the hurt he felt inside, Silver went to speak but Tails made a 'No' expression at him, "How is your love life fairing, Prower?"

"I…" he lied, "I have a girl."

"What's her name?"

"… Cream." But he could tell the hesitance had been far too long.

Fiona stared at him for the longest time before she nodded and said, "Congratulations."

When she was gone Silver stared at Tails in a condescending manner, _"What?"_ but he only made a tut-tut noise and returned back to inspecting the wine bottles. He wished he had something to throw at the hedgehog's head.

.

Around half an hour later, the bionic woman came inside the bungalow with painkillers and food for them. WelshScot was still unconscious, and Tails was still in pain, but awake. His arm was preventing him from thinking about anything, especially sleep. Chaos and Tikal had performed a special little ceremony on his arm, so that it would hurt twice as much as it was meant to, but it would heal three times as fast.

"Food, and medication," she murmured quietly.

"Thank you," Tails said, incredibly grateful because he hadn't even eaten breakfast that morning, "my name is Tails Prower."

_"__Prower?" _she asked in shock.

"Mhmm," he declared, taking the sandwich and biting into it. The stale bread and cheese could have been a gourmet meal. He didn't care what it tasted like, he was starving.

She bowed, her human eye darting back nervously, "Was nice meeting you, Miles."

"You too."

He chewed happily, looking out the window as the red-haired human went to speak to Metal Knuckles. They exchanged a few words, looking back at him. With each sentence she became more and more frantic. She finally burst into tears, crying and hugging Metal Knuckles, who looked a bit queasy and guilty, as if he had just blurted out something he shouldn't have.

_Wait a second… how did she know my name?_

_._

Sonic demanded instant emergency health compensation from Metal Knuckles for 'sticking 'im in the middle of this rat-infested mess', as he had worded it. He had been the one to take Tails back to the garage, while Metal Knuckles delivered Welshscot and informed them that they would have someone able to pick him up in a day or two.

Doctor Quack inspected all of them for injuries, but apart from being a little roughed up and tired, no one required any medical attention except Tails and Welshscot. They performed a quick surgery to remove the bullets from his mutant armour and set him on the fold-out couch, bid the doctor goodbye, but not without a quick check up on Tails.

The little fox had fallen into a coma after the whole ordeal. Waking up a day or two later, better rested and absolutely starving. Sonic was sitting on the end of his bed when he woke up. A toasted plate of ham, cheese and tomato sandwich was set in front of him, which he immediately reached for and scarfed down. His blue brother was strumming chords on the old guitar he'd pulled out of the storage room a few days ago, and they sat in companionable silence while Tails ate and Sonic played.

When he was done, Sonic put the guitar down and stared at the cast around Tails arm, the bandages around his tails, his green orbs sliding up to lock with Tails' eyes, "I'm really sorry you were involved in that."

"Wha-?" and then all the memories of the past few days flooded back and he had to place a hand to his head to stop himself from flopping back onto the bed. There was a stretch of silence before he said, "It's alright, Sonic."

"No it's _not!_" he said, closing his eyes in real hurt, "You almost broke your arm because I couldn't contain the situation. Su was right! I think with my heart, and I'm too impulsive. My flaws get everyone else hurt," he said, banging his fist onto the bed, which caused Tails to wince a little, "Crap. Sorry Little Buddy."

"Sonic…" Tails said gently.

"No Tails, I know you're going to tell me it's not my fault, but it is!" he said.

"Blue," the fox said firmly, _"Shut up." _Sonic zipped his lips and waited for him to speak, "No matter what you say, it was _our _decision to go, me, Silver, Blaze and even Caleb, decided to go, not because anyone was forcing us to. Okay? If I had the chance to do it all over again, despite the fact that I knew I'd have to deal with you acting like a _girl,_" Sonic grinned at that, his green eyes sparkling with mirth, "I'd do it again."

"Why?" he asked, though through the laugh in his voice, he saw the clear break in notes, meaning Sonic had been on the edge of crying, "You're one of the smartest people in Soleanna. _Why _would you go through so much pain for a guy that couldn't even protect his own family?"

"Sonic, you were only _eight _when The Massacre occurred, I'm not exactly blaming you for not being able to-" Tails said, but he was cut off when Sonic lunged forward and hugged him tightly around the neck, trying to avoid the sore arm.

"I didn't mean _The Massacre! _I meant _yesterday!_ I couldn't protect you, you stupid twerp! _You're _my family now," he said and Tails felt something drip onto the back of his t-shirt, "and when I saw Scourge slamming you into the dirt, I didn't think, 'how am I supposed to attack someone I once _considered_ a brother?' it went something more along the lines of, 'get _off _my brother!'"

"It didn't sound like that, Sonic," Tails grinned cheekily, "the words you said were more M-rated."

"You're such a doofus," the hedgehog said, grinning wider, his shoulders shaking with laughter, "I'll try to protect you more."

"Impossible! Sonic, do you know what I signed up for while you were gone?"

Sonic sighed, but he'd made a nice resting place for himself on Tails shoulder, "Yeah, Amy explained. But I can-!"

"No, this is my battle," Tails declared but Sonic just squeezed him harder, "I'm not four anymore, I don't need as much protecting as I used to."

"Don't you see? Our battles aren't that different, and we're both going to need a little help, okay?" he asked, pulling back and staring at Tails with now dry green eyes. He hoped the hedgehog hadn't left a mess on his shirt. Not that it would matter, the shirt was now torn and incredibly dirty with blood and mud stains all over it.

"Okay fine," he huffed, but Sonic could probably sense the smile in his words, "let's make each other a promise."

"Okay...?"

"We'll stand by each other, we'll support each other when we can, and we'll only interfere when we've _really _got to… okay?" he asked, and Sonic laughed, the peace of the moment untouched by their looming fears.

"No problem, Lil bro."


	9. Try To Fade Away

**domi|note**

Okay, there's still a _lot _of drama here. _And _more hints for you to speculate over! Tell me if something from the previous arc was not explained properly. There's some rude, offending behaviour in here, if you're easily offended… then why the heck are you reading this story in the first place?

For curiosity's sake and such, **WelshScot**'s reviews are now being placed into the chapters to make things clearer (and to increase the word count! Muahhahahaaa), they've been placed in the previous chapters for future reference… and stuff.

Thanks to **SmallSpek**, **Exploder**, **WelshScot**, **HalfWright**, **superechidna** and **Metalshadow1909** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>For fast-acting relief, try slowing down. ~Lily Tomlin<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Nine  
>.<em>  
>"I try to fade away and begin this dream, where the pieces fit so easily."<br>…_  
>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>Outside the bungalow, standing near the post where Sonic, Julie and Marine had been tied to, Metal Knuckles was observing the N-Zone, which looked better with the bodies of cops lying scattered and broken. The red head had to admit, today hadn't gone as bad as he thought it would. His gang only got a few scratches and bumps, there wasn't going to be an all out gang war between his crew and the SS, and St Condom was probably crawling back to his master right now, maybe even out of a fissure that Scourge put him in.<p>

True, Welsh-Doc was unconscious and Tails was contending with a broken arm, but on the whole, today was a successes. And as an added bonus, he managed to convince Scourge into letting Auto Fiona join the Nocturnes. And he had managed it without using the 'you-know-who' threat, in fact, the green hedgehog seemed glad to be rid of the bionic woman.

Thinking seemed to call upon the Devil, as that same woman's voice drifted from behind Metal Knuckles. "Zackary..."

The dusty-voiced man turned around, whilst flashing a wide grin, and greeted, "Long time no see, Fina. Looking as beautiful as ever I see."

She smiled weakly, rolling her human eye in disbelief. "Listen, Angel. _Just_ because I'm running with you now, doesn't mean you can flirt with me again." The man's metallic hands were raised in a 'whatever you say, darling' sort of way, which, even though it was all friendly, still made Fina aim her blue, glaring optic at the now nervous male. But when that moment died, her face became troubled. Turning round to the bungalow, where one could see a young, yellow fox sitting on a bed eating a stale sandwich, she asked quietly, "Zack...is that...?"

Following her league, he turned to stare at the fox, who was watching them in return. "Yea... that's Amadeus's kid alright..." Inside, MK's heart started to sink. He always knew this day would come up, but what could he tell her? The truth? No... It wasn't his place.

Fina turned back to face the red head, her human eye stared to turn red and puff, "Argus, how he's _grown_. He looks so much like his father." She hung her head slightly, a tear trickling down her cheek. "I remember the last time I saw him, him and D-" She stopped, her voice now on the verge of cracking as the tear slid off her chin. MK continued to stare at the bionic woman, his eyes full of pity, as she tried to speak again. "I-it was their wedding a-anniversary. We had been invited to C-Chuck's place for a party. I remember when you bragged about s-saving the Duke's life by catching the s-sniper's bullet out of the air. He..." She smiled, as her tears were about to break free. "...H-He rubbed his thumb and middle finger together, before flicking you off and saying—"

"...'If only you could catch gals like you did that bullet," MK recited, a ghostly grin spreading across his face, "'then you wouldn't feel the need to flirt with my little vixen, she's already in my chamber'." Fina nodded, her metal eye now looking like it was going to cry as well. MK began casting his mind back too, before—

His face felt ridged, knowing what he must do wasn't going to be pleasant. Making eye contact with Fina, he muttered, flatly, "Fina, he's dead. He was killed ten years ago by his bastard friend. He can't come back, so you need to let him go."

This was the worst thing he could've said, as Fina promptly burst into tears. She fell forwards and would have hit the floor, if MK hadn't caught her. She continued to cry her heart out, burying her face into the man's shoulders and sobbing, "I-I can't Zackary. H-he meant so much to me! They all did! Amadeus, Rosemary, hell I even miss Terri!" She shook her head. "Oh, why? Why did he do it?"

Metal Knuckles patted her back; his face sagged with unease and guilt. It pained him to do this to her, but it was something he needed to do. He sighed and looked up into the sky, while Fina continued to cry into his shoulder, "I don't know, Fina. I honestly don't know..."

* * *

><p>"...Zzz... No, please... don't make me... anything but Yorkshire puddings… English devil food..."<p>

Then, from out of nowhere, a loud, muffled ringing awoke me from my nightmare. I sat up, my eyes wild with fear; which then screwed up with pain as I tried to move my arm. Looking down at my right arm, I saw that it was wrapped in bandages and a sling. That was when the memory of yesterday returned, and questions began surging through my head.

_How did Fiona's gun pierce my scales? Where am I... and why does this place smell like oil fluid and whore?_

I was soon reminded that a phone, my phone which I had hidden from the SS, was ringing. Pulling it from, err, where I was hiding it, I flipped it open and muttered, "Hello, Welsh—

"Welshaldy! Thank Solaris, I've been trying to call you for days!" I snarled into my phone, but CJ, ex-cop, childhood friend and empath/hacker just ploughed on. "What happened? The news is calling the sounds from the N-Zone as an earthquake, but I've been hearing that there was a battle between the SS, Nocturnes and the Police! There's a rumour that the Chief of Police was beaten to a pulp by Scourge and Sonic! And according to this, you're in the Black Arms Garage—"

"Hold it, CJ," I hissed, realizing that overhead, people were asleep. The raccoon, Marine, was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag, along with a purple cat, the Lady Violet, Blaze. I also heard the sound of mass snoring coming from up stairs. Returning to the conversation, I inquired, "Ok, first off, I've been unconscious. I got shot-"

"Ya I know, by Fiona."

"And how did you work out I'm in the Black Arms?"

"Bad news travels fast in The Underground."

I blinked, utterly shocked, annoyed and confused. Ignoring that last piece of conversation, I asked, "Is there anything on the news? And I mean the actual news."

"Not much," she replied, dryly. "It's pretty much useless, Adam Mecha must be holding the real stories again. But I did hear that the news reporter, that overly bionic Omochao, is gonna break a story on Violet Manor today."

Before I could ask why, another call came in. I apologised to CJ, as keeping MK waiting wasn't wise. His voice soon crackled through my phone, which sounded like its usually cactus-ridden monologue. "Welsh-Doc, you're up already?"

"Yea, it'll take more than a couple of bullets to keep me down. Mind telling me why I'm at the Black Arms Garage?"

"It was the closet place to the N-Zone where we could safely remove the bullets from your arm."

"Right, a place that smells of oil and cheap sex sounds really sanitary."

"Can it, Welsh. Where's that famous 'get what I'm given' attitude?"

"'Or taken', M Knucks. It's just that my apartment in the Black Hill district is closer to the N-Zone. You could have just dropped me off there."

"Ah..." his hesitant voice didn't give me any comfort,"...Emerl checked ahead and... It was sort of... blown to hell."

It took a lot of self control to keep myself from shouting into the phone. After silently crushing my phone for a few minutes, I replied, in a forced, calm tone, "What do you mean, my apartment was 'blown to hell'?" A sudden thought struck me, and an answer was already in my head, "Never mind, I'll sort that out later. Any chance that I could swing by the Garden Centre?"

"Not if you want to bring Eggman crashing in behind you. There's too much heat, so you might have to stay there for a week. Anyway, your arm isn't healed yet so I think you should stay put. There was a brown fox who wanted to speak with you, his name is Caleb. I've got to go, Auto Fiona sends her relief that you're alright. Bye." And with that he hung up.

Just as I lowered the phone, a guitar sounded over head, waking up all the ones who were still sleeping.

My apartment was blown to hell, possibly on certain bitch's order, and I was in a place full of underage mechanics, vigilantes and a royalist.

I'm Welshscot, and my life might just have taken a turn for the interesting.

* * *

><p><em>The Ballad of Mona Lisa <em>by Panic! At the Disco

* * *

><p>There was light. It was the first thing that he registered every morning, but he didn't think it had ever really burned through his eyelids before. He hoped it wasn't physically possible, because according to all he'd ever learnt about fox anatomy, it wasn't a regenerative body part.<p>

Tails chastised himself for thinking about science so early in the morning. Sonic mentioned something about not thinking too much, thought he could manage it. Haha. Being the disobedient teenager he was, it was the first thing he did in the morning. Gol-ly gosh. He was hungry. He thought a little more. Like, was it normal in the pubescent body system to be hungry _all the time? _Seriously, there had to be something to counter that reaction, because he could hear his stomach protesting like a savage little mini-earthquake in his gut and he didn't want to move.

It was mostly due to the burning pain in his elbow. He _needed _that thing. It was Karma's bloody sadistic nature to detach Tails' bones and rearrange them at her will. Doesn't she have better things to do that pick on poor innocent darlings like him? No? Okay then…

_Bitch_.

Tails opened his eyes, and Sonic was at the end of his bed again. He was playing his guitar. He swore, ever since he and Man-_Scourge_ parted ways he hadn't been able to let go of the thing. He had become rusty; he used to be a lot better. The fox could tell his fingers were slowly getting used to the positions again; frets, chords, picking.

Music was a kind of science that Sonic could understand. He commended him for that; he never had the patience to build up a technical skill like playing an instrument. It was like riding a bike to some people. Came naturally to some, and then there are those that would rather ride a skateboard or a scooter.

He was the skateboard kid.

"Tails? You up?" he asked, turning around and setting the worn out guitar on the floor.

Actually, he's down. Somewhere in the lowest pits of Hell. His elbow felt like Shadow'd Chaos-Blasted it, ground it into powder and then tried to rearrange it with duct tape. Because we _all know _EVERTHING can be fixed with _duct tape! _Right? NOT! It was hellfire in his body system and it wouldn't leave. His ribs hurt too. All he could see in his head was the prick that he bit when he was a kit, slamming him into the wall. Tails hoped that bastard got what he deserved. And Scourge! Did he do a number on him! Shit. He couldn't feel half of his body now that he's focusing on the injuries. His thighs burnt. So did his tails. His stomach was growly and sore. Wah!

Tails needed a hug.

Metaphorically of course.

A real hug could kill him.

… There's no such thing as a metaphorical hug.

"Yeah?"

"Are you hungry?"

Did you not just _hear_ the conga drums in his stoma-?

"Yes."

"Okay, I'll fix something up."

Sonic seemed different. There was something bothering him. He could tell by the tone of his voice; it wasn't cheery or useful. It wasn't that I'm-here-to-help-coz-I'm-a-happy-go-lucky-lunatic tone he'd come to know and cherish (sometimes). So Tails stopped him before he got out the door, and with his good hand, patted the bed.

Sonic sat down beside the mechanic, but he didn't need to say anything to get Sonic to start talking. Sonic wasn't the kind of person to keep a lot on his mind. He could say everything that was in his head in a few sentences, unlike Tails, who couldn't convey everything in fifty. This time however, he just took one.

"Do you think he still drums?"

Oh.

He missed the relationship that he and Scourge used to have, and he wanted it back. The Massacre robbed a lot of kids of a lot of things, screwed people up and changed their lives forever. It never seemed to affect Sonic. It was in these small instances of vulnerability that Sonic reminded Tails of himself, where they had to swap roles and Tails had to be the older one.

"I reckon he does."

It seemed to be enough to fill up Sonic's self-esteem meter, because he was back on his feet and prancing in no time. He was about to run off when Tails stopped him, because the serious content of the next conversation is more important than he'd like it to be.

"You need to explain what happened to Knuckles."

Sonic sat down on the floor and pouted like a child, Tails could see he was reluctant because he was playing with the edge of his shoelaces, "Why do _I_ have to?"

The fox rolled his eyes at the way that Sonic whined at him, "Because _you're_ the only one that knew him before The Massacre. _I _might have a good idea about what's happening, but everything is pretty meaningless coming from me, especially since I didn't even come onto Knuckle's scene until a few years ago."

Sonic's eyes widened, and his lower lip started to quiver dramatically, "But-_but-_!"

"Knuckles deserves to know that Julie-Su, Tikal, Chaos and the rest are still alive. After that you need to start explaining all the confidential, annoying stuff."

"But-! The news about St John hiring the Suppression Squad to catch the pro-mutant doctors will be on the television soon enough. They're going to explain that Scourge thought there was a cash grant involved… but of course, they're not going to mention how Eggman probably wanted to eliminate them all on one go."

Tails huffed, not at all phased by the pitiful show the he putting on. Sonic tried it so often it didn't work anymore, but the fox was kind of worried about him, "Yeah, the news likes to report casualties and the like, but they aren't going to exploit Eggman as St John's employer. They're not going to say that Eggman was rounding up pro-mutant doctors so that people like us would be forced to go to the hospitals on _his_ pay-roll."

"Do you really think so?"

The younger one snorted; a movement that angered his elbow quite a fair bit, "_I _didn't actually. Metal Knuckles explained it to me on the way through N-Zone."

Sonic's green eyes widened considerably, "So that _was _Metal Knuckles, he left so quickly it could have been anyone else! He didn't even say hello."

He nodded, and to be perfectly honest, it felt a little surreal repeating it. Who else could say that they had _met_, let alone _fight alongside _Metal Knuckles? It was pretty cool right? "Yeah, it was. Can you imagine what would have happened if Eggman had gotten a hold of those doctors? Chaos and Welshscot would have been killed on site! And the rest of us would all eventually get screwed." Tails remembered something, "That was what you were probably doing, weren't you? What happened when you went with Marine the other night?"

"You mean after we ran into all those… dead bodies?... MK found us and forced us to help find the doctors… or… he said he would _tell_. He'd tell the members of The Royal Court where I was living and, that wouldn't have gone down well for me _or _Scourge." Sonic shook his head. The fox remembered something a few days ago, about how there were a few mutilated bodies in the sewer where Sonic was investigating in the news report.

Tails didn't like this feeling, this ominous, frightened feeling. It _really _sunk in. If those doctors had died, the rest of mutant-kind would have been dead meat. It was a completely devastating thought, "People like Metal Knuckles and maybe even the Tails Doll or Auto Fiona would have to come out of hiding. I can't believe this Prix. It's skyrocketing the chance of getting killed for _all_ mutants and _everyone _that's helping them."

"Who's Auto Fiona?"

"Didn't you see?" he asked incredulously. But no, dear brother Sonic, he hadn't. That was in fact, _why_ he was asking, "It was that human with the red hair and the bionic arm. The Suppression Squad gossip about her a lot. Apparently 'Auto Fiona' is a nickname that they give her, but she really doesn't like it. Her real name is Fina."

Tails tapped his temple momentarily, "Now that I think about it, she _knew _Metal Knuckles. She was speaking to him before like they were old pals." He decided to leave the part out that she had burst into tears on his shoulder; Metal Knuckles must have said something pretty devastating.

"I'm not surprised," he brought up a knee to lean his elbow on, _damn him_ and his perfectly healthy elbows, "that lady is Fiona's adopted older sister, and apparently, before The Massacre; a Royal Guard's girlfriend. She's on MK's team now though."

That's a shame. All the Royal Guard were killed in The Massacre… except Metal Knuckles and Metal Sonic.

"What? No… I met Fiona's older sister a few times and…" and… and they had an uncanny resemblance. If she'd smiled a little more than Tails probably would have been able to see the similarity, but… but why did he remember her? She knew someone else that he knew, a person that was not Fiona… This was all screwed up, "This is horrible. Her life is ruined. And so many are in the process of being ruined, and it's _all _because of Eggman. I can't believe I'm saying this, but his death would benefit everyone, more than keeping him alive ever could."

Sonic gave him a little grimace and scooched a little closer to the bed, "I've got a little bit of info for you Tails. Have you been to a seer in a while?"

Eugh. Seers were fortune tellers. He was of _scientific _mind.

"Sonic, you know I don't believe in what they say. What does it matter though? They've been saying the same thing about Eggman for four years."

He looked gleeful anyway, completely unfazed by his pessimistic response, "Nope! Wrong answer." He scooched closer so that he could whisper in the yellow fox's ears, despite the fact that they were probably the only people on this floor, "There's a rumour going around that Eggman's fortunes are slowly changing. Seers all over Soleanna are checking their predictions twice."

"That's bull." You know, because it _was._

"Stop being so cynical. They say that he will soon be faced with the 'ghosts of his past' and repent for his sins."

"And do they have a name for these so-called 'ghosts'?" Because he just felt like entertaining Sonic for a bit, it's not like he actually believed any of the nonsense he's spouting.

He scratched his quills nervously, "Okay, so they don't exactly have an official name for the ghosts yet, but they're repeating 'black wings' a lot."

He paused, because now they were moving into incredibly dangerous territory. Nobody had brought up this subject for four years, partly because it was just unsightly, and another reason was because no one was _allowed_, anyone caught mentioning this subject under Eggman pay-roll was immediately _shot. _No questions asked. Just executed on the spot. Brutal. So now that Sonic was bringing it up he was kinda nervous.

"Sonic, don't mention anything about 'The Crimson Night' or 'The Fallen Angel' unless you absolutely have to," Tails advised.

He put up his hands in surrender, "Alright buddy, I can totally see that this conversation was already too heavy for someone in your situation, okay? I'll go and make you some breakfast."

When he said that, he felt a little freer, because life four years ago had been _absolute HELL _after The Crimson Night. But he wasn't going to dwell on that now. There were better things to think about while he was healing.

Tails didn't even mind the fact that Sonic had gone off to make him chilidogs again (despite the fact that he was freaking sick of them). He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a bit, which was absolutely _thrilling_, you have _got _to try it sometime, and his vision caught light on something white and shiny.

It puzzled him for a bit, you know?

Everything in that cemetery blew up. So how would it be possible for his parent's grave crosses to survive and miraculously fly to his room? Yes, one of the great mysteries of the universe indeed.

He leant over and saw that there was a note above his dad's cross, so he reached as far as he could to get it, catching it in between his middle and index finger. It was a peculiar yellow paper that was dirty with ash and soot, but the words were written clear enough.

_Though your battle begins and ends with hatred, never lose what's truly important. Wisp is where you'll be tested; alongside wind, water and flame. Know that I will battle for you and if the arms turn white, you will survive in Radical City._

_In tua custodiam,_

_DA_

Hmm. Forever in your guard.

He could do with a guardian angel that'd actually show up to _stop _him breaking his elbows. Shit… maybe that was a little unfair. He should thank whoever had the decency to bring these back to him… but… did he even know anyone with the initials D.A.? Um… Deviant Art? D-d-d-d-d… no… nothing came to mind.

Bleh, whatever…

The message didn't even make any sense, so he chucked it away and rose on legs that felt like jello. He hated staying in bed. Day time television was the work of the devil. He'd rather be speaking with his friends than reading a book at the moment. He needed to find some sense of normality after the crazed amount of shit that had been happening.

* * *

><p><em>I'm Alive <em>by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>He almost performed a face-plant into the bottom of the staircase, because he was <em>just<em> that talented. But he managed to make it to the kitchen table without anyone berating him for being out of bed. Sonic was dancing in a 'Kiss the hedgehog' apron that, he was absolutely sure, belonged to Amy, while cooking up a storm. And while it smelt delicious, it was one of the only things that Sonic could cook, so it wasn't exactly the first on his list of breakfast feasts.

What he found at the table was a sight even stranger than Sonic dancing around in the apron, and that was Silver and Caleb sitting down pencilling out something that looked like an escape route. Thing was, they were so engrossed with their plans and talking to each other they didn't even notice Tails presence. It was a weird sight, so strange that he might as well try to break it up.

He could see it was a map of the Violet Manor. They must've been thinking of an easier way to get out of Blaze's house for future reference.

"Hey."

Caleb looked up and nodded to him, because he had a pencil in his mouth and two between his ears, switching between all three of them to make different coloured notes on their little diagram. Silver looked up once Caleb looked down again and raised an eyebrow, "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

He shrugged, "Shouldn't you be fighting?"

Caleb threw his pencil down and made a show of stepping on Silver's foot underneath the table. Silver opened his mouth in a silent scream, and retaliated by kicking Caleb's chair out from under him.

He pounced back up instantly, "Silver and I are _not _getting along, this is a figment of your imagination, forget it now."

He kept on staring at them as he got back into his chair, "He's helping me design another escape route out of the Violet Manor. Bitch made me pay." He said, jerking his head in the brown fox's direction.

"I'm not cheap."

"What? You're a whore now?"

"Precisely. But I wouldn't take work from you if you were the only person left on the planet."

He felt like slamming his head into the table. Seriously? This kind of talk at the table? "Sonic, I don't think I want chilli dogs anymore."

"What? Why?"

"They're talking about genitals at the table!"

"You guys are gross," the hedgehog said, "if you're gonna talk about privates, sit on the floor, because apparently, Tails doesn't like it on the table."

Oh shit.

"Where _does _Tails like it?" Caleb asked playfully, and Silver snorted.

He huffed angrily because these guys were being gross and disgusting. So much for being a gentleman.

"In the bathroom? On the kitchen counter?" Silver was actually _helping _him now! What happened to bros before hoes? And apparent Caleb was the hoe. How odd.

"Stop it!" his face felt like it was on fire. Just his luck to get roomies with minds full of gutter gunk. He knew he shouldn't be, but he was laughing. There was something different about the way that they were all interacting. It was kind of like fighting together yesterday had brought them together again after news of the Grand Prix split them up. Silver wasn't being so agitated and Sonic wasn't being secretive, even Caleb was becoming a little more bearable.

"I kinda prefer it in the shower."

Or maybe not.

"Eugh, you're _all _filthy and vile!" he exclaimed. He wished there were girls here; maybe Amy or Blaze wouldn't be so vulgar. Maybe even _Shadow. _But… that'd be calling the kettle black. Shadow was a sex fiend.

Sonic pranced over to him and pinched his cheek like a crazy, over affectionate fat aunt, "Aww, Tails! You're such a cute little virgin," he leant down and gave him a slobbery kiss on the cheek, which Tails kicked him for.

Repeatedly.

Why was he surrounded by lunatics?

Tails wiped his cheek clean while they continue to laugh at his expense… actually, it was just Caleb and Sonic, which kind of lead him to wonder about Silver's sexual experience. And _then _he was damning himself to HELL for even _thinking _about that because the _images WOULDN'T LEAVE HIM ALONE!_

"Go eat a strawberry sandwich!" he yelled, making Sonic back away from him in fright.

Tails believed he was relatively calmer by the time Sonic finished cooking. He only got through half of the chilli dog though because the lewd look that Sonic was sending him was giving him the creeps. He was just doing it to scare him. Sonic did that when he was in a good mood. It was not funny unless he was doing it to someone else. Completely hilarious when he was doing it to Shadow, partly because Shadow said that thinking about sex with Sonic made him vomit in the back of his mouth a little. Gotta love that guy.

"So why did you have to get Caleb to help you?" the little fox asked, physically blocking Sonic's view of his face with a magazine.

"Blaze wants him to," was Silver's immediate response, as if asking Caleb was some kind of grave crime on his part, "said that she likes the way he moves."

"In the bed," Caleb muttered teasingly, prompting an immediate pencil-stab on Silver's part. Caleb's breathy laughter sounded painful as he waved his abused hand about, no doubt trying to get some feeling back into his fingers.

"Wait a minute… Silver, is _Caleb_ the one that Blaze was talking about that night we found out about the Grand Prix?" **(i)**Tails asked incredulously. He felt a little ridiculous. It felt like those times were years away, but in truth, it had only been last Friday, not even four days past.

His reply was snide, but not directed in Tails' direction,_ "Apparently."_

Tails cradled his head in his hand, "Eugh, I feel like I have a hangover."

"You probably do. Apparently Doctor Quack made you drink some alcohol to numb the pain yesterday," Sonic explained.

"Geez Tails, you're such a lightweight," said Silver, the bitch.

"I'm _fourteen!_" he said defensively.

"P'shaw," the brown fox waved his hand fruitily, "I was drinking two years before you."

_"__Alcohol?" _Silver and Sonic asked, shocked.

_"__No," _he grinned, "but I _was _drinking illegal substances."

"Yeah?" Silver challenged, "Like what?"

_"__Barbaderis," _Caleb answered proudly.

"What the hell is that?" the little fox asked, it didn't sound dangerous, but it sounded kind of like a plant name. Didn't sound illegal by any standards though. A type of mild alcohol?

"Commonly known here as _aloe vera_," he smirked, and they all gasped, because Aloe Vera in Soleanna here was like some kind of illegal drug. It was _so _hard to get a hold of. No one knew the really reason why The Omelette banned it, probably for the same reason he banned Extreme Gear; because it was bringing joy to people.

"How did you get it? And when you were _twelve _too!" Tails demanded.

"Haha, I wasn't in Soleanna when I was twelve," the fox laughed, and the mechanic really felt like stabbing him with another pencil. Where did he get off teasing him like that? He saw Silver deflate a little. There were many things banned in Soleanna that weren't banned in other cities. It was really stupid actually.

_There! _That was Caleb's secret identity! A DRUG DEALER!

"Your headache isn't in too much of a state, is it Tails?" Sonic asked, "You can always sneak into Shadow's room to steal some aspirin, I mean, he wasn't here last night. Besides, Welshscot down there is in an even worse state."

"Oh shi-! I forgot about him!" Caleb said, running down the stairs, even when he was perfectly capable of jumping the balcony. He decided to follow him, since he was curious as to why the brown fox needed this doctor so badly, and decided to brave Violet guards and rotten police for him. Of course, he reached the second floor a lot slower than the traceur, but he sat at the other end of the couch as the brown fox pulled up a stool to the moaning doctor, who was clutching his head in pain.

"Prower, do you think Shadow would mind if I got some aspirin out of his room?"

"Should be on top of the drawer," he mumbled tiredly, smirking when he remembered a very important detail, "next to the _lube!_"

Welshscot snorted next to him when Caleb made a high-pitched 'Eww!' noise, and bolted out as fast as he could, dropping the bottle in Tails' lap and heading upstairs to get a glass of water. Tails turned to him, watching as his gray eyes cracked open, "Does your arm feel like its on fire?"

A rasped, "Yeah," was his response.

"Mine too."

Caleb knelt and offered the doctor the water, which he gulped down gratefully. When he was done, Welshscot turned to the older fox and addressed him for the first time, "Alright, the white one said you've been lookin' for me for a fair bi' of time, huh?"

Somewhere in the background, an indignant cry of 'Why is everyone calling me that?' made Tails chuckle. Why _yes _Silver, they _did _live to annoy the living shit out of you. Is there such a thing as 'dead' faeces anyway? Yuck, what a gross thought. Better stick to mechanics, Prower.

"Mhmm. I need ta learn medics and psychiatry," he supplied, in a politer tone than he'd used with _any _of the Black Arms Garage inhabitants. It kind of made him mad. Tails had been trying to gain that kind of respect for three days.

Welshscot winced and rubbed his temple, smiling when Caleb gasped in shock and fell off his stool, scrambling away as if the medic had just aimed a pistol at his head. He smiled evilly at the frightened fox, and Tails stared in amazement, wondering if there was a freakish way to gain this ability too.

"Why do you need to learn psychiatry?" The doctor asked; a cool, disdainful expression now spread across his face. "It already comes easily enough to _empaths_."

He snapped his fingers and at the same time, Silver yelled out, "I _knew _it!"

Sonic seemed to have missed the entire conversation, because he spat out a muffled, "What?" probably through bits of onion and hot dog.

"Yep," said the medic, "one of the rarest forms of psychic powers, apart from telekinesis and non-Mobian animal communication; the ability to sense and manipulate others emotions."

Silver shouted over the balcony, "If you can do that, then why are you such an asshat?"

"It's a coping mechanism, isn't it?" Welshscot asked, "To make sure you're not overwhelmed with someone else's emotions, you've taught yourself not to care about anyone."

Caleb glared darkly at him, turning away and muttering so quietly Tails wasn't sure he'd heard it, "… Yes."

Ah! So there _was _a real reason for Caleb's jackassery!

"How did you know that, Welsh-Doc?" he asked, amused at the way Caleb had kind of curled in on himself in the floor. It wasn't often he found someone so on their high horse shrunk to size. It was… satisfying, no matter how mean that sounded.

"I have a friend that's an empath. I've trained myself to deflect their mental probing."

The brown fox on the floor slammed his fist into the carpet, "Dammit! Was that any reason to _fake _an unrestrained urge to kill me?"

The doctor nodded, "No, _but _it was kinda funny. Besides, I don't apprentice impolite brats who feel the need to manipulate me to get my help."

"I am _not _a brat!" he growled, getting up, "And I can be polite when the need arise." Silver snorted from the balcony and Caleb grabbed the bottle of aspirin and chucked it at his head, "Shut your _god-damned _trap, Silver, or someone's gonna find all his clothes covered in _itching powder!_ I don't need your _sodding _input right now so _fuck off!_"

"Heartnet, you're not exactly helping your case," Tails supplied, but this only seems to irritate the brown fox more.

"I don't _care _anymore. I can't believe you'd just reject me outright! I've been looking for you for _two years _and exhausted _all _my other options!"

"Options for what?" the medic asked, the very picture of calm.

But Caleb didn't catch it, "Hell, if I don't gain enough medical practice or rings, she could _die _and-" he wasn't even listening anymore; he was just pacing and ranting with more pain in his eyes than Tails had ever seen on him.

"Oi, Lad. Just calm down," Welshscot said in a soothing manner, but it didn't have any effect on him, "why do you need medical practice?"

Caleb opened his mouth as if to spew his worries out to the world, and then he composed himself, and took in a deep breath, the storm in his eyes slowly disappearing, "I need rings. My jobs aren't enough anymore. Pro-mutant medics gained a lot of cash right?"

"Enough, to indulge in some bad habits," Welshscot replied, and Tails thought back to the whiskey he'd needed the night before. As if he reading his mind, Welshscot turned his head towards the mechanic and muttered, "No, I'm not a drunkard. I only drink Whiskey to increase my strength. If I have any kinda vice, it's spending all my free money on extra medical supplies. Results of having a god damn hero complex."

"I have bad habits," he replied calmly. Tails was really curious as to what these bad habits might have been.

"Have you gone to Doctor Quack?"

"Already got apprentices."

"Tikal?"

"Chaos hates me."

"Found another one?"

Caleb released a cry of frustration, "I came to you, through murderous Violet guards and through the middle of a bloody… _gang _war because I thought you'd be able to handle a volatile, selfish brat like me!" he added after a long deep sigh, "Or I could at least guilt you into doing it."

Wow, even Tails was feeling sorry for him now. It was in the way he totally deflated, and his bones turned to mush. Or it might have been the _tiny _little breaks in between his words, or the small sniffle at the end of his sentence. Caleb was now radiating pity and 'aww, hug me' vibes.

"I'll think about it," was Welshscot's reply. Tails couldn't tell what the doctor was thinking, as his face turned blank and emotionless.

Caleb scrubbed at the salt film over his eyes furiously and nodded before heading over to the garage door and closing it with what _might not_ have been an accidental slam.

* * *

><p><em>Cooler Than Me <em>by Mike Posner

* * *

><p>Tails stared at the garage for the longest time before turning back to the doctor.<p>

"He's a good actor, that one," Welshscot said, and Tails' eyes almost bulged out of his skull.

"He was _faking?_"

He shook his head, "Not the last few sentences, no. I think the tears were accidental, and a few other words, but the rest of it was acting."

"You're not seriously thinking about rejecting him now, are you?"

"… I just don't wanna apprentice a kid that's learnt to use his powers in the wrong kinda way. Besides, I'm in deep shit with the wrong kinda people. I don't want to bring anyone else into my problems." He shrugged. "Or it's just that I'm lazy. Besides, housing for two is expensive."

Tails sighed, understanding Welshscot's view, up to the point about just being lazy and worried about living costs. Was he really that stereotypical? He did wonder what the 'deep shit' was, but decided that was a question for another day. Besides, he would be very hesitant about apprenticing Caleb as well, "Do you know where the racoon and Lady Violet are?"

"Downstairs."

Tails got up and placed the television remote within Welshscot's grasp, making a pathetic kind of limp downstairs. Caleb was gone, but the Babylon Rogues, Blaze and Marine were crowded around his Extreme Gear maintenance bench, inspecting something curiously.

He squeezed himself in between Blaze and Storm to see what they were gawking at. Wave was trying to dismantle Blaze's gear while the rest were looking on in fascination, "What's up?"

"Swallow's 'nspectin' Blaze's Gear. Says there's something strange 'bout it," the youngest mechanic replied, eyes going wide when Blaze's gear sparked and protested its apparent dismantle.

"Well of course," the duchess replied, "it was modelled off designs that I found in our control room."

Tails gasped and turned back to Blaze, remembering what he had seen, "Yes! Those were _Eggman's _designs! Blaze, what were your parents doing with them?"

Blaze's eyes lowered sadly, "Sorry, Tails, but I have absolutely no idea. I was grounded for being in the control room at all."

"You're _always _grounded," Marine said.

"No, but I mean confined to inside The Manor, I wasn't even allowed to go to the tennis courts."

"Yer Pa needs to dislodge tha' stick shoved up his ass," Marine growled, earning a cuff on the ear from Blaze, but the rest of his company laughed but Wave.

Instead the swallow scowled and threw the Gear down onto the workspace angrily. Blaze's eyes widened and she caught the Gear before it could fall off the table, "What's wrong?"

"There is no way that is Eggman's gear."

"How'd you know?" Tails asked, earning a fierce snarl in retaliation.

"Because it's _Babylonian _design!" she hopped off the table and went outside the garage for a breather, Jet and Storm following and looking grim.

"Gods," Tails said, "I was just asking a question."

Marine patted his back, "Sure she's jus' angry 'coz 'er 'erritage 'as been compromised by a madman, _and _taken credit for it too."

"Actually," Blaze said, "I think she just doesn't like you."

Marine and Tails sent her blanks looks before the racoon's slowly started to develop into a glare, "Duchess, 'member wha' I told you 'bout that think called 'subtle talk'? Need to go over it again for ya?"

Blaze rolled her eyes, "I'm just telling it like it is."

"Yeah," Marine replied, "stop doin' it." The racoon turned to Tails, "As ya can see, bein' cooped up in that manor like bloody Rapunzel ain't doin' her any favours with social etiquette outside o' her fancy-ass rich bozos, that like ta suck up ta her 'rents."

"Hey-!"

Tails decided to wander off, now that they were fighting (and getting into fights between girls was like asking Knuckles to punch you in the face) he decided to get to his computer lab, where he could check up on all of his e-mails. No doubt there would be angry clients asking why he had been away for as long as he had. He was about to turn to the wall that separated his computer lab from the rest of the garage when he heard something. And even though he knew he shouldn't be eavesdropping (look where it had got him last time?) he just couldn't help himself.

They wouldn't have been able to be heard, if Shadow's voice wasn't steadily escalating, "Rouge, we might have had something really special four years ago… but you've got to let that go."

"Don't speak to me as if I was one of your whores Shadow! You _never _slept with me, and do you know why you rejected me the first time I asked?"

"Was it because you were being over-eager?" there was a slight condescending note in his tone, one that Rouge replied angrily to.

"_No _you conceited bastard. It's because you said it would be like losing the best friend you _ever _made on Mobius."

"Funny," he said cruelly, "doesn't sound like the kind of thing I would say. Reckon I would remember something like that."

"'_Reckon'_ you'd remember _anything _that happened involving The Crimson Night, all things considered," she snarled, her velvet voice taking on something harsh and evil.

"_Stop_ speaking about that! You're going to get the rest of us killed," he hissed angrily.

"I _can't believe _this! Such cowardice coming from you. You aren't the Shadow I remember."

"And you're not the Rouge I remember _at all._"

"Oh that _stings_, Sunshine. Does it make you feel good about yourself to break my heart over and over again?" she snapped, but her voice was breaking.

Tails couldn't believe what he was hearing. According to Amy and Sonic, who knew Shadow before him, Shadow had a chronic case of amnesia. When Tails had stepped onto the scene, Shadow couldn't even remember his own name. Sure, other things like mechanics and fighting came so naturally to him, as well as his mutant power to manipulate energy, but anything _personal_ like a history, emotions, and particular personality traits were lost on him.

He suspected that Sonic and Amy knew a little bit about Shadow's past, but wouldn't tell him anything, since most of what happened, happened around the same time of The Crimson Night, which was illegal to even _speak _about.

And here Rouge was, blabbering on about his past like she had a death wish. It was good the garage wasn't bugged.

"Do you know how upset I was when I realised you didn't remember who I was?"

"I get that reaction every single time I meet a past conquest, it isn't exactly something new to me," and yes, Tails had to deal with a murderous past conquest every now and then, it felt like being Alan Harper from Two and a Half Men, dealing with many beautiful women that wanted to saw Shadow's head off… Gross.

"You know what? Fine. Be a prick, I only came here because I care about you _and _the new life you've made with your friends, but if you're going to be asshole about it I'll just leave the protection of the Black Arms in your care," she huffed.

"Wait a minute, what are you saying about the Black Arms being in danger?"

There was a small silence between them, but when she spoke again, she sounded amused, "Do you even _know_ why you _named _this place Black Arms?"

"Fine, come with me upstairs, it's a lot safer than being in here."

Tails tried to look busy as they passed him and climbed the stairs, but stayed playing with his tools for the longest time, mulling over their words with an intense curiosity. The world he knew was crumbling from all angles and he just didn't know what to do.

* * *

><p><em>Unconscious Reality <em>by Artist vs. Poet

* * *

><p>Tails would admit that he was a little scared when Wave slowly started to hover closer and closer to him as he continued to work on his boards. The ones that had been damaged during the gang fight were in the worst condition, and she was working quietly on Jet's gear, which was starting to look pretty good now. He still didn't understand what could have happened to render three such amazing boards into the state they were in when the Babylon Rogues had shown up at their door.<p>

He almost had a heart attack when she helped him for the first time.

He had been trying to reach for a specific spanner on a high shelf, and normally he would have been able to get it himself, if he could fly, but his tails still weren't in the best shape. The little fox had been making these annoying, grunting noises trying to jump for the tool with his hand in a sling, when she'd come up beside him and grabbed it before he could.

"Hey! I was going to use that," he protested.

She growled, annoyed, "I was _getting _it for you, Shortie, show a little gratitude."

His eyes widened, not expecting this in the slightest. He reached forward and took the spanner in his good hand, nodding to her silently before returning to the gears. For the remainder of that evening, she continued to help him in the tasks that were too laborious for him, which unfortunately, were most things. Every single time she would slip in and help when he wasn't paying attention he was taken aback, and would often comment about how such kindness was kind of weirding him out.

"Ugh!" she threw her hands up in the air after he had shuffled away from her again, "Why are you avoiding me like the plague?"

"Why are you _helping _me?" he retorted, incredibly surprised by his outburst.

"What's wrong with helping a fellow mechanic?"

"It isn't exactly normal when not three days ago you were saying that you don't _like _me. Actually," he narrowed his eyes, "you're kind of helping with that image of 'borderline psychopath' Storm helped me associate with you."

Wave closed her eyes and heaved in a huge, shaking breath, "Okay… I will admit that I have not been the most agreeable as of late, but Jet has _politely _asked me to be a little politer to you, if not for the fact that you have not actually done anything wrong, than for the fact that you're giving us shelter and food."

"Well…" he was still staring at her suspiciously, and the way that her sharp blue eyes bore into his own, "…okay."

She walked forward to help him again, murmuring something under her breath.

"What was that?"

She coughed a little, "Um… I said I would have helped you anyway… I know what it's like, trying to operate with a broken arm."

"Hn."

"QUICK! WHILE THEY'RE DISTRACTED!"

Sonic sped down the stairs and picked up his almost completed board before Tails could snatch it out of his grasp. Jet appeared from absolutely _nowhere _and snatched his Gear before Wave could try the same thing, and they both started sprinting for the garage door.

"Hey!" the fox and the swallow yelled at the same time, "Your board _isn't _finished!"

But they had already hopped on their boards and challenged each other to a race, zooming out of sight quicker than both Wave and Tails could follow. They both stared into the Soleanna sunset, the same exclamation on their lips as their shoulders sagged with exhaustion, "Fuck my life."

They looked back at each other, widened their eyes, and scowled.

* * *

><p><em>Conversations With My 13 Year Old Self <em>by P!nk

* * *

><p>Caleb leant against the wall bordering The Black Arms parking lot, feeling the uneven surface of brick dig and prickle into his back, wishing it would bring forth the physical pain that he needed to distract him from the weight in his heart, his <em>own <em>weight, his _own_guilt.

He'd almost seen the last flicker of hope extinguish before his eyes, and the devastation had hit him too fast and too hard again. He needed to control himself, if something like that happened again, _they _would catch on.

He was still wiping away his tears as his fingers skimmed the button of his phone, "Pull it together, Heartnet. Lottie first, it's always Lottie first." He released a shaky, crooked sigh to stabilise himself; to make sure the other end couldn't tell he was an emotional wreck right now.

_You __**feel**__ the emotions, you don't __**show**__ them._

They answered.

"Yes, this is Heartnet speaking… It's in progress… Yeah, I've found it, plus photographic evidence that the Tails Doll is linked to Miles Prower."

He sent three photos then; one of Amadeus's white cross, the second was a shrivelled, burnt image of the Prower family from ten years ago, and the third was of the Tails Doll himself, framed in a haze of purple flowers and red blood.

As soon as they were sent, he dropped the phone, letting it fall to the floor with a noisy clatter. He sunk into the wall, raising his face to the sky and closing his eyes, asking for repentance.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" the words came out a dry, broken sob. There were no tears.

Self preservation had been the only reason he had survived so far, but never had felt so broken, so willing to throw himself into a night on the Crisis City streets, unprotected and weapon-less.

He'd deserve it.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i) **See Chapter Two: Deception in Progress, under _Sway Sway, Baby!_ by Short Stack_._


	10. Shed Not The Innocent

**domi|note **This is the surprise that I was keeping in hidden in my fridge until I got enough reviews :P

It's a special excerpt of what happened behind the scenes of the Violet Manor while Tails, Silver and Caleb were trying to break Blaze out, from _Tails Doll's _perspective. Aha, gotcha hooked now right? Okay, scroll down and **enjoi.**

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek**, **Metalshadow1909**, **Ficfan412**, **Spadework2**, **WelshScot** and **LordCooler** for reviewing the last chapter.

And oh yeah, apparently I should bump this up to 'M', so I will be doing that, because the violence doesn't just end on a broken arm kiddies. There's something really weird about this story… it's casually gaining more and more co-writers. There's the regular bit, written by **WelshScot**, and there's also a little more input from **Kobiee** (do you remember? It's garbage man!) who has been helping me work the plot from behind the scenes. And once the beta's are back hopefully the cruddy editing will stop.

**WARNING; **Violence! Of the _violent _kind. I'm _not_ kidding, if you come to me flaming for the mass amount of violence I'm going to stare at your message and _laugh._ So if you're squeamish, just _don't_ read it.

This was written _completely_ by **Welshscot**!

* * *

><p><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Ten<br>_.  
>T h e . J a c a r a n d a . S l a u g h t e r<p>

* * *

><p>The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre was quite a large building. It was clean by this city's standards and it provided cheap, clean work for desperate mutants. But underneath this small complex of greenhouses and gardening equipment was the home of something much dirtier; dirtier than compost but cleaner than punks like the SS.<p>

This underground storehouse, which was big enough to house a small army (which it did), was full of the comforts and needs that a gang like the Nocturnes required. Though their gang didn't parade around in broad daylight, they dealt in guns, protection (free if you're a Mutant but twice as much if you're a Human) and Extreme Gear racing. Out of all the gangs and Underground business (like the Iron Domain whore house and Mammoth's Loan Shark Bar), the Nocturnes held most of the races in the city since their leader, Metal Knuckles, took over from the sell-out Ix.

Currently, all the members of this Pro-Mutant gang had to take shelter in this hideout since the heat from their latest stunt was still blazing hot. It was not a case of being overcrowded, the underground storehouse had lots of spaces to sleep and food to keep its inhabitants fed for a month, but the success of yesterday's mission meant only one thing..._PARTY!_

It was surprising that the noise and the music didn't carry to the people up above in the Garden Centre, as food, beer and song flowed amongst the partying gangsters. Most of them were dancing on an unmarked dance floor, shaking their hips to _'What I'm made of'_, while some just clung to the edges; playing cards, pool and the occasional arm wrestle. Everyone was generally losing themselves in the heat of the party.

But while the party raged, near the main couch and TV spot, a door that lead to the lieutenant's quarters burst open. Two echidnas, one orange and one pink rolled out, locked in a furious, one way struggle. Finally, Julie-Su pinned Tikal down onto the ground; a looking of angry was fierce in her eyes. The hippy medic tried to silently implore Chaos, who was standing under the doorway, to help her; but the water jelly mutant shook his head. He knew better not to mix into girl matters.

Whilst trapping Tikal's arms with her legs, Julie snarled, "This is it, you're _so_ dead!"

"Please," whimpered the medic. "It was only a prank. There's no need to kill me just because I lined your goggles with ink..."

She stopped as Julie roared, "Well your little prank made me a laughing stock! I only realised I had rings round my eyes when the Suppression Squad tussled me and Sonic up! I can take being fooled in here, but I've now looked like a loser to those bastards; who'll never let that moment go!" When Tikal started to cry, Julie's look softened. "Oh, don't worry. I'm not gonna hurt ya..." Tikal's eyes widened with shock and relief. "BUT I'M GONNA TICKLE YOU LIKE NO TOMORROW!"

So began the ruthless torture, as Julie's fingers rubbed against every sensitive spot on the orange Echidna; who was begging, screaming for her pink friend to stop; tears of uncontrolled mirth now showering from her eye. But like Aloe Vera, the medical/ecstasy drug, an uptight official came and ruined the fun/trouble.

Shade's towering presence was more than enough to subdue her apprentice; who quickly jumped to her feet and stood feet together at her annoyed teacher. "Julie-Su," began the armoured Echidna. "As my apprentice, I expect you to not act like a child when around the others."

Julie nodded; her face now lost her prior giddiness. "Yes, Shade." Though Tikal was glad to be tickle free and standing once again, she felt sorry for Julie that she constantly had to meet Shade's standards.

But a clanking of metal, which was muffled in the dim of the raging music, signalled the arrival of Emerl; the ex-Eggman and ex-Mutant robot. The yellow, blue eyed mech had the power, thinking a body of a robot. But he still had a heart, which was wired up to keep the oil fluids running. Standing right beside Shade, he stated, "Shade, yesterday we kicked the SS and the Police right in the genitalia; and there was no gang war because of it. You should let your apprentice have some fun for once. And you should, as they say, 'let your hair down'."

She gave the cyborg a sceptical look and replied coolly, "You don't order me around, Emerl. I don't mind sensible ways of relaxing, but I refuse to see my student rolling around on the-"

She gasped, as if suddenly touched by a live wire. She glanced down at the side of her hips, where Emerl's metallic fingers were now resting against. She glanced back up and managed to catch what he said, without losing it in the music. "As they say...'Tickle, Tickle...'"

Next second, Shade was down on the floor, laughing hysterically, as Emerl began his own little attack. The people watching were mixed with horror (that Shade could actually laugh), amusement (since it was killingly funny to watch this unexpected assault) and wonder as they tried to guess how many bullets would be sent the cyborg's way after this.

Naturally, Shade broke free from her tickling and the first thing she did was aim her gun straight at Emerl's head. But before she began firing, a drunken Nocturne (the wimp who had gotten his nose broken at the warehouse) suddenly shouted, "Look-*hic*-at dat c-cute-*hic*couple... Go a-and have a-a dance-*hic*..."

The crowd took a step back, their eyes plastered upon this small scene; while the dancing still carried on. Shade and Emerl looked at each other, exchanged a curt nod, and turned to the drunk; Shade's pistol and Emerl's installed mini-gun arm primed at the drunkard's waddling feet. The man's yells of terror couldn't be heard, nor were the gunshots as they unleashed round after round; deliberately missing the man's feet.

"Go on," shouted Shade; whilst smiling evilly. "Dance, dance ya wimp."

"Negative," commented Emerl; whose robotic eyes seemed to glimmer with satisfaction. "He performs more of a jig. A clumsy jig, perhaps, but a jig none the less."

"I'M JIGGING, I'M JIGGING," screamed the drunk wimp; whose red face had turned chalk white as he 'jigged' around the bullets.

Eventually they stopped and the wimp collapsed on the floor; all jigged out. Shade and Emerl gave one another a hard, unreadable stare, before hoisting their weapons and making their separate ways. Before she left the scene, however, Shade passed her apprentice and muttered, "If you get drunk, you're training twice as long tomorrow; got it?"

Julie nodded, a smile now spread wide across her face. She hugged her teacher, who cringed slightly, before going after Tikal again; who had wisely ran to the other side of the room.

Julie, after darting across the dance floor, almost collided with a stray, wooden table; where MK and Fina had been talking privately since the party began. Ignoring the fact that their table was almost sent flying, the two old friends continued to laugh away at past memories.

"...And that was the last time, Chuck invited us over for a chocolate fondue!" Fina, who was drinking a glass of water, burst out laughing; whilst MK took another swig of his VB. Smacking his lips, the red head continued, "Up until that point, I thought it was only he who had that reaction. Amadeus scared the livin' daylight outa me, when he jumped onto the table and started to sing 'Super Sonic Racing'. I still have nightmares out it! HA!"

"Me to," chuckled Fina; as she took another sip out of her glass. Despite being new and once being part of the SS, Auto Fiona had settled in nicely with the Nocturnes. It wasn't only because she was friends with MK, but she had a way with mutants and bionic humans that made her very likable.

As MK finished his beer, his phone vibrated. He jovially reached into his pocket and flipped open his phone. But as he read the message, his face became darker with every word he read. Then, as he read the final line, his face contorted into a look of boiling anger and disbelief. He stood up, and before Fina could ask what was wrong, he muttered, "Listen, get everyone to quieten down and watch the news. I need to go—"

"What? But you said there's too much heat..."

"I know what I said," he hissed; his pocked marked face looking deadly serious. "But I need to get over to the Black Arms, fast!" And without another word, MK took off; leaving a confused woman behind.

And while he hoisted his weapons, as he ran through the back door to the car park, he thought:

_Because I need to stop him. I won't let him do it again, not this time..._

_Yesterday_

* * *

><p><em>They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What's blood for, if not for shedding?~ <em>Candyman

_Thank you for the Venom _by My Chemical Romance

* * *

><p>A small, purple Jacaranda blossom was gliding through the air; having been parted with its brethren. As it made one final twirl, it ended its dance upon the calm sea water that surrounded the grounds of Violet Manor. This blossom floated gracefully upon the surface of blue, a tiny, beautiful spot that was lost in the void of the sea. But as the waves tried to bring the blossom from the line of deep and deeper to the sandy white beaches, something beat nature to it.<p>

The petal of purple was pushed aside by a small wave that had emitted right beside it, which washed out in the shape of a small circle. Then, without any warning, a red stone broke through the line of water. Following the antenna that held it in place, was a burnt, fox fur mask; its fake, plastic eyes aimed directly at the pearly white Manor.

The Tails Doll walked slowly onto shore, not knowing or caring that the purple Jacaranda petal had stuck to his trench coat; which was already sticky and damp with bits of slimy sea weed and the stains of ash. All the masked man could think about was what had happened the day before, the day that the graveyard burned. He had helped the raccoon girl by escorting her to the Black Arms garage, a place he had once known very well...a long time ago...

He stopped, the movement causing some of the seaweed to slide off his leg. He had just reached the edge of the Manor's grounds, which held a view of so many different types of flowers and even a truly marvellous scene of a pool covered in thousands of purple Jacaranda blossoms. But what caught his eye were the two individuals who were crouching behind a white rose bush, unzipping a black satchel. It was not guess for the Tails Doll on figuring out what they were. From their looks, a grey wolf and a black stripped cat, they were Mutants and by the looks of the gleaming, red gems that glistened from inside the satchel, they were also thieves.

The masked man didn't care that they had obviously stolen from the Manor, as some Mutants had to resort to worse things to survive, but if they had gotten in, they could tell this stranger how they did it. It wouldn't take much; he might not even have to point.

As he silently approached the two thieves, he heard the black cat crook gloat, "Tha' was too easy for words. I thought this would be hard, but their security system was a joke. Cross a couple of wires and the alarms on the display cases go down and they weren't anyone guarding them. That Duke cares more for his stinking daughter than his own jewellery collection. Shame we didn't take that board we found."

His companion, who had been goggling at their pile of rubies like they were dollops of ice cream, tore his eyes away and stared at the cat; shaking his head, warily. "Na, not worth it. Gears are bloody hard to use and the one we found had the MeteoTech symbol. I don't want to mess with anything associated with The Omelette. Anyway, let's get this stuff back to R- SODDING SOLARIS!"

The feline thief was taken aback by his comrade's sudden outburst, partially because of the fear that shone from his words and eyes. But a shadow soon fell upon the black cat, which was due to the towering figure that was blocking out the sun. He looked up, resulting in a small, girly scream.

The Tails Doll frowned, which really didn't matter as his face was masked, at the noise these two crooks were making. Before he could make any attempt to silence them, hurried footsteps reached his ears. Turning to his left, the masked man saw a bald, Caucasian guard; who had been patrolling nearby. A silver pistol was in his hand and it was trained upon the thieves, who were stilling gazing at Tails Doll, but had subdued their frantic screams.

"All right, freaks, hands were I can..._Shit!_" the white faced guard, who had turned his sight upon the trench-coated man, turned even paler. His hands began shaking, whilst his petrified eyes stared at the Tails Doll. But as the masked man took a step towards him, the guard's legs joined his arms; cold, frightened sweat started to trickle down his face. "S-Sto-op," he ordered; his fear caused his voice to sound high and squeaky. The Tails Doll took another step; his blank, plastic eyes were staring at the guard's, as if trying to hypnotise him. He took another step. "S-Stay back! I'll-I'll sh—"

A fur gloved hand shot out and grabbed the guard's gun. Panicking, the Caucasian man yelled as the Tails Doll pulled the silver pistol out of his hand. Before the masked man could move again, the human, acting on pure, terrified instinct, reached for the holstered knife in his belt.

A frantic scream, a flash of steel and the unmistakable sound of metal meeting flesh. The guard stared at the knife, his hand still grasping its handle, which was embedded in the Tails Doll's chest; right where a heart would beat life. The masked man's body had went tense, as if startled that this was his end. Then his arms slumped and his head drooped down; the antenna now pointing directly the guard's white face.

The man's breathing slowed down and colour returned to his face. Back by the open satchel, the thieves also became calm; their fears ebbing away as their eyes looked at the lifeless—

The guard jumped, or rather, had been lifted into the air; whilst his hands began to claw at the hand that was squeezing his neck like blue tack. While the Caucasian man writhed and squirmed like a fish out of water, the Tails Doll looked down at the blade in his chest; which was still piercing the heart that hadn't beaten in years. With his free hand, he pulled the knife out of his chest; the steel blade now stained with the blood of a dead man.

The Tails Doll slowly raised his head, until his eyes were staring once more at the petrified and now slightly pooping eyes of the guard; whose skin was now turning dark blue. The masked man loosened his grip of the man's throat; he had other ideas for this victim. Raising the bloodstained knife, so its point was now pressing against the guards chin, the Tails Doll made a low, growly moan; which barley made its way past the mask's stitched mouth. He slowly, teasingly began spinning the knife in his fingers; which the guard followed with his scared and panic-stricken eyes. Then there was a sudden movement, which the guard responded with a flinch.

After a few minutes, of listening to his whimpering breaths, the guard open his eyes and saw that the knife's edge was resting against the black stitching of the Tails Doll's own mask. Seeing that the Caucasian man was now watching, the masked man began to slowly slide the knife against the points where his stitches crossed. Once the last seam had been cut, a small slit opened; showing only a darkness that hid burnt, cracked lips.

The guard stopped squirming, his eyes transfixed upon the small opening, which filled him with unease and dread. Then, without the slightest warning, a low, horse voice filled the air; which pierced the ears of all who heard it like a beautifully silent dagger.

_Reach out for the sunshine,  
>Forget about the rain.<br>Just think about the good times,  
>And they will come back again...<em>

The guard, who had been gaping at the haunting lyrics, could do little to stop his own knife from plunging into his open mouth. The steel edges of the knife had no trouble separating the man's pink and fleshy tongue from the bottom of his mouth. Though blood splurged from the seams of the tongue, the knife's handle completely filled the man's mouth; so the blood trickled downwards, stopping at the point where the Tails Doll's fist was squeezing the guard's throat.

It was hard to say if he died from the shock of his tongue being cut out or from gagging on his own blood. It didn't matter to the two thieves, who were still frozen in place; horrified at the sight before them. Long after the guard's eyes turned milky white and his limbs went limp, the Tails Doll released the dead Caucasian. When his body landed upon the grass, which muffled the sound of his landing, his mouth shot open again on impact; causing the tongue to fly out and land on the edge of the bush of red roses.

The masked man slowly turned, his knife now covered completely in blood, and began to walk slowly to the thieves. Before they could scream or yell the trenched coated man raised his knife to the opening of his mask; from which came a small hissing sound. The thieves, recognising the order for silence, subdued their whimpering.

The Tails Doll stopped in front of them, his fake, plastic eyes aimed at the black cat. He then slowly raised his knife and pointed it at Violet Manner; whilst beads of blood began to lazily drip from the freshly used blade.

The feline thief managed to work out what the masked man was saying. Gulping, looking directly into the eyes of plastic, she asked, "Y-you want t-to know h-how we g-got in?" The Tails Doll nodded. "T-there's an a-abandoned ventilation s-shaft. The D-Duke wanted one y-years ago, b-but decided against it a-after a week they s-stated building it. They f-forgot to close the outer vent, the one f-for the c-control room and o-one upstairs near t-the Duchess's study. The entrance is behind an r-rose bush on by the e-east side wall, by the huge t-tennis court."

He then bent his head down, and cried, "And that's all we know, I swear! Please don't kill us; were only doing our job!" Frightened tears began trickling down his fur, as he waited for the knife to plunge into his neck. He waited, and waited, and then his partner shook his shoulder. The cat looked up, fear still fresh in his eyes, and the Tails Doll was gone.

Across the grounds, walking in the shadow of a Jacaranda tree, the trench coated man was making his way to the tennis court. With his skill and silence, he easily avoided the guards that patrolled the grounds. In fact he was so stealthy that he was doing it automatically, while his mind went to other matters.

He was thinking about yesterday, back to the time he had spent visiting the graveyard; the burial site for all the innocent mutants and humans who had died during the massacre.

_He remembered how he had arrived at his destination, while a warm breeze made his antenna sway. He had stood there, looking at the memorials of people, great, good and honest people he had once known in another life time. Then the flames appeared, like a random storm, and he had been in the middle of it; watching in horror as claws began to pull out trees, headstones and corpses. He tried to save as much as he could, but as he placed the memorials in his coat he saw a pair of red, looming eyes._

He stopped on the edge of the tennis court, right beside the rose bush that hid the ventilation shaft, as a blazing furry began to grow inside of him. His arms shook, his fist tightened around the handle of the knife; which began to crack under the masked man's strength. That man, that _thing_, was the reason why he was like this. He was what stopped him from ending the massacre before it could have truly begun; he was responsible for the deaths of all those innocent people. And now he had the nerve, the depravity, to visit their graves and tear them open.

He was then suddenly drawn out of his rage, by the sounds of footsteps. He snapped his head round, just in time to see a vast number of guards chasing after a brown furred fox. The guards, red faced and sweating, shouted angrily at the fleeing vulpine; who was dodging in and out of the trees like a brown leopard, looking like he was having a lot of _fun_ doing it. The Tails Doll watched as the young fox stop by an old plum tree. He said something to the guards, who were so angry that they continued to ignore the weapons _on their belts_, and lunged at him. He easily sidestepped them and made his exit; long before the fruit the guards had dislodged, when they slammed head first into the tree's trunk, began to explode onto their heads like purple paint bombs.

Obviously the fox didn't need any help, so the masked man continued to his goal; smiling behind his mask at the sight he had just seen. He slid behind the bush and found the shaft; which was already open thanks to the thieves. Placing his new knife deep within his coat, he knelt down and began to crawl into the tight space, his antenna scrapping against the top of the shaft. He stopped and managed, with extreme difficulty, to pull the antenna down until it pointed vertically downwards; making the Tails Doll look like Pinocchio.

Beginning carefully on his way, the Tails Doll slowly crawled down the cramped tunnel; which was more or less a straight line. While keeping as quiet as possible, he began to think again about yesterday.

_The moment he had saw his old 'friend', the Tails Doll immediately gave chase; ignoring all the flames around him as his own fiery anger took hold. His pursuit didn't lead him to his quarry, who managed to evade the masked man without even realising he had been followed, but he managed to find a vent for his anger. Stopping by warehouse on the edge of the Docks, the Tails Doll found a single technician; who was shouting about some 'yellow fox'. The masked man, having given up on his chase, investigated the warehouse and found a busted Egg Giant; which was one of the types of robots that had been used in The Massacre ten years ago. After interrogating the technician, the man's terrified voice had uttered one name..._

"Well it's time to make you pay!"

Once again he was drawn into the real world, where he was now looking out of an unblocked vent. From behind the metal bars, the Tails Doll was looking down at a room that was heavily laden with wires and surveillance monitors. He had a clear view of a particular surveillance unit, which had an open panel that had many live wires poking out. What caught his eye the most was two, very familiar, things.

The first one he saw brought anger to the masked man. He recognised that bald head, those pale blue eyes and that very small smell of cheap cider anywhere. A soldier, or _was_ by the looks of his guard uniform, who used to work for Eggman's private army. But more importantly, he was one of the scumbags that had enjoyed the prospect of killing mutants; 'like fish in a barrel', that was what he said. He then turned his eyes upon the mutant that the soldier was beating, the latter having just punched the mutant right in the—

From behind the mask, the Tails Doll's eyes widened in recognition and shock. He had known that he was alive, that he was living in what was now called the 'Black Arms' garage, but he hadn't set eyes upon him since all those years ago. He was older, bigger (not by that much though) and was being beaten up by a piece of shit that had ruined his life.

The Tails Doll would have crashed through the grating of the ventilation shaft right there and then, and would have wrung the life out of the solider for hurting—

"Tails!" The solider turned round and stared, along with the eyes of the Tails Doll, at the purple feline that was the Duke's daughter, called Blaze. This small moment allowed the yellow fox to stagger to his feet. The guard spun round, his blue eyes back on the mutant technician, and dived. The masked man watched the fox side step the guard's rugby tackle; causing him to crash head long into the sparking wires.

Despite a few violent spasms, the Tails Doll was disappointed to see that the solider had not been killed. He was glad though, that Miles Prower was no longer in danger. The fox gave the human a spiteful glare, before leaving with the cat. The masked man was glad to see the fox healthy (ish). He didn't wonder why Miles hadn't killed the human, as he would correct that mistake.

As quickly as he could and despite the cramped condition of the vent, the Tails Doll managed to push the grating off the wall. He pulled himself out, dropping right next to a bundle of live wires. An idea came to him, as his managed to spy the sparks from the tiny slits in the fake, plastic eyes. As the bald man began to shake his head, the Tails Doll grabbed two, long pieces of wire. Pulling the wires, but being careful not to pull them from their appliances, the masked man walked over to the ex-solider; who only noticed the Tails Doll when he was looming over him.

Looking up, grumbling, "That stupid mutant, if I ever..." He stopped, his blue eyes staring at the masked man; recognition and horror now gleamed in his eyes. "_YOU!_ But you're dead; I saw that Egg Giant t—"

Before he could say any more, the Tails Doll brought his foot down upon his gut, then upon his chest; pinning to the ground. Winded, the bald man could only watch through dazed eyes as the Tails Doll crouched down; his foot still upon the bald man's chest and two, sparking wires held in each of his hands.

The masked man didn't even bother to sing; he wished this man no good times. As the bald man's lungs decided to finally let out a scream, the Tails Doll plunged the wires directly into the man's eye sockets. The wires broke the sea of white and blue jelly and blood began gushing out of the man's eyes; his body now fidgeting madly as forty thousand volts coursed though his veins.

His screams, lacking in power due to the bald man's previous injuries, could barely be heard though the thick wall of the control room. So no one knew that Cubot Orbot, ex-soldier, father of MarDean Orbot and husband of Bokkun Orbot, had died a horrible, painful death at the hands of the notorious Tails Doll.

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_Guess that's thirty-one pieces of silver you've got now, huh? Sleep well, Judas_."~ Daredevil talking to Ironman during the Marvel Civil War

_From Yesterday _by Thirty Seconds to Mars

* * *

><p>"FOR THE LOVE OF ARGUS, SHE'S ESCAPED <em>AGAIN?<em>"

In the Violet Duchess's study, which was right above the Control Room, a blonde, mousey haired guard was cowering under the fiery roars of the pink furred and amber eyed Duchess, Duchess Lume the Cat; who had just banged her fist upon her polished oak desk.

The Duchess's office was quite large and spacious. Besides the large, wooden desk, which was placed against the window-lined wall and faced towards the elegant, polished brass handled study door, and a couple of comfortable arm chairs, the room was fairly spacious. Most of the decorations were hanging on the red and gold walls; spanning from shields and sabres to paintings and patchworks. Above the study door was a portrait of the Duchess's family, standing outside Violet Manor from left to right; herself, her daughter, Blaze, and her husband, Fuego the cat.

From the right side of the door was a bookcase filled with tomes and stories that had barley been touched. Above this was the second most noticeable painting in the study. It was called 'Merces proditoribus', meaning 'the Traitors reward'. It was a picture of two men, one dropping a handful of silver coins into the other's hands. They were in a bleak graveyard, and hovering from every tombstone was a pale, twisted ghost; who were all glaring at the man receiving the silver coins. It was a priceless piece, worth millions of rings, and had been in Lume's family for generations.

Back to the Duchess, who was sitting in her armchair; fuming like a lit rocket on the verge of exploding. She slammed her fist onto her desk again, causing letters and paperwork to fly in all directions. Her amber eyes were aimed at the guard before her desk like a sniper rifle; all the power and no weaknesses. When she spoke, she spoke in a low, threatening growl. "Now let me get this straight. You were tricked by a brown fox who had _no weapons_ into follow him; _forgetting_ that you had _guns?_ Then you, while most of you were being thrown into pools and tricked into trees, you allowed that white _lowlife_ to sneak in here with his friends, who somehow trashed all forms of communication, and let my daughter leave with them OUT THE BLOODY _FRONT DOOR!_"

The mousey haired guard cowered under the Duchess's furious words. After his ears stopped ringing, the guard mumbled, feebly, "Y-yes, my Lady Lume. W-we don't know where she and her friends are now, but this isn't the first time this has happened. She always comes back..."

But this only caused the Duchess to explode again. Standing up, revealing her silk, maroon robes, Lume roared, "SHE SHOULDN'T BE ESCAPING _AT ALL!_ I DON'T WANT HER ASSOCIATING WITH THAT_ LOWLIFE THIEF_, SILVER, OR ANY_ OTHER_ PUNK FROM THAT STINKING CITY!"

She began to take slow, steady breaths; trying to keep herself from tearing up the room with her bare hands. She was on edge, ever since that...'episode' had occurred yesterday. She didn't need this, she didn't need to explain to her husband (when he got home) for the hundredth time that their daughter had escaped and she didn't need the phone calls from the other members of the Royal Court that would plague her in a few hours; especially from that nosy General Tabby.

She sat back down in her chair, her throat stinging from all of her shouting. She needed peace, she needed quiet, she needed this idiot to get out of her face and worry about his career somewhere else. With her eyes closed in an attempt to block out the image of failure, she waved at the guard to get out of her sight; preferably by the time she opened his eyes.

As she blocked out the soft creaks of the blonde guard walking out of his study, Lume began to think about her daughter; her beautiful, disobedient daughter. Years ago, the young pyro had been obedient, loyal and didn't pull of break-outs that involved her guards running around like headless chickens. It was ever since-no, it wasn't him, _yet_. It was that Raccoon, Marine, who was the cause of this.

That visit to Tabby's Marines, the 'Coconut Crew', had been the most embarrassing courtesy call ever. She, along with her husband and daughter were given a tour of the Coconut's Naval Base, the Windmill Island. It had gone well, up until the point where Blaze walked ahead to examine a painting hanging in the main hallway and tripped up over the raccoon; who had been fixing a small pipe burst. The Raccoon, who wasn't fazed at all by being tripped up on, tried to help the princess up. Blaze was always wary of strangers, so she shook off the raccoon's helping hand. This turned into an argument, Marine shouting about that she had only wanted to help 'so why ya being such a rotter 'bout it?'. Blaze had replied back curtly, saying that she didn't need help from a lowly mechanic. When one of the naval officers tried to break up the fight, a gunman had appeared from nowhere; his intent being to kill Blaze because of some grudge against Lume.

The gunman would have killed Blaze that day, if Marine hadn't tackled her out the way. Then, as the gunner took aim again, the raccoon revealed that she was a mutant; an aquakinetic (or hydrokinetic) to be precise, which was shown as she fired a blast of water from her hand at the gunner's face. As the gunner was sent away in chains, Fuego, the Duke, decided to reward Marine for saving his daughter by appointing the raccoon as Blaze's personal mechanic.

At first the duo hated each over, but gradually they warmed up to one another; Blaze teaching Marine to behave in polite company and Marine taught Blaze how to talk with people. That was start of those mindless shenanigans that frustrated the guards and servants, where Marine or Blaze would cause some mayhem or prank. Then that hedgehog, Silver if she remembered correctly, came into the picture and then the break outs started...

Lume, who had not been in thought for long, was wondering why she hadn't heard the door close. She opened her eyes, irritation flooding though her as she expected that she would have to—

The Duchess almost toppled out of her chair in surprise and horror. Outside the doorway, his hands clawing at his neck, the blonde guard was dangling in the air; his face slowly turning blue. And no matter how hard or many times Lume blinked, she could not see another person or the fingers that were drawing blood from the hanging guard. A few seconds later, the guard fell limp; his body now spinning in the air like a pendulum.

As Lume stared at the floating corpse, she saw about half of all her guards turn into the hallway that led into her study. She only managed to catch a glimpse of their horrified faces, when the study door swung shut. The Duchess sprang to her feet, ran across the room and began to pull and at the door; which had somehow locked its self from the outside.

Then, from behind the closed door, screams filled the air. Pure, terrified screams that were accompanied by sounds of flesh meeting steel. Lume, terrified beyond belief, tried to barge the door down; to see what creature was in her home. As she tried for the third time, she became vaguely aware that something was brushing against her shinny, platform shoes. Looking down, she saw that it was blood, blood that had trickled under the door; blood that belonged to the twenty or so men that presumable lie dead outside.

The Duchess was not a cowardly woman, but this was too much for her. She ran to the book case and began frantically tearing the tomes off the shelves till the hidden shotgun was visible. With no time to spare, as the door handle began to slowly turn, Lume pulled the shotgun from the shelf, pumped it to see it was loaded and then pointed both barrels directly at the door. She waited; sweat trickling down her fur, as the handle slowly continued to turn.

Then, after a small click, the door didn't swing open. Instead, a roll of colourless, blood stained wire fell to the Duchess's feet. Then, with no warning, something crashed through the study's ceiling; showering the cat in splinters. Yelling with pain, the Duchess began to pull out a huge splinter that was embedded in her right arm. Before she could make a slight tug, her shotgun was torn from her hands and a gloved fist grabbed the Duchess's royal robes. As she was hoisted into the air, Lume's amber eyes took its first look at her assailant; which chilled her to her very heart and soul.

"Amadeus! You're _alive?_" The Duchess's amber eyes trailed upwards at the red jewel topped antenna. "_You're_ the Tails Doll!" The fox faced assailant didn't confirm or deny the cat's question; he just walked forwards; still gripping the Duchess's robes tightly. As he reached the desk, his fake, plastic eyes fixed only upon his captive, Lume asked, timidly, "What do you want from me? Why are you here?"

In response, the Tails Doll slowly raised his free arm and pointed at the Merces Proditoribus (the 'Traitors Reward' painting); his finger aimed directly at the man who was receiving silver. Lume, now even more scared, hurriedly denied the accusation. "I don't know what your—"

The Duchess felt like her gut had exploded, as the masked man brought his pointing hand into the feline's stomach. He then grabbed the bottom end of the cat's robes and slammed her onto the wooden desk. Before the cat could process the pain, the Tails Doll, who had noticed the splinter, pressed a finger against the shard of wood. Once again, he pointed back at the painting of the graveyard; which told a message that the cat understood perfectly.

But once again she tried to lie. "I told you, I don't-ARGH!" The masked man had pushed the splinter deeper into the Duchess's fur and skin; red blotches now forming a small stain on her pink fur around the splinter. The Tails Doll didn't wait before he began to pull it out, causing even more pain for the lying royalist.

He was about to place the splinter back in again, when Lume gave in; screaming, "ALRIGHT, alright; I'll tell you the truth, damn it!" The fox masked man flicked away the splinter, but he still kept a firm hand upon the Duchess's robes. Gulping, the Duchess began to confess:

"It's true, I don't know how you knew, Amadeus, but I was involved with what happened at the cemetery yesterday. Eggman wanted a place where he could store his robots before and after the attack so he paid me for the use of my warehouses at the Docks. He then wanted me to buy the land from the church so he could build his new race track for the Grand Prix." Lume felt the gloved hand of the fox faced man tighten its grip in anger. After that small pause, the Duchess continued, "He wanted something else from the cemetery, but he didn't say-"

She was cut short by the Tails Doll, who showed his disbelief by punching the cat square in the face. Feeling blood trickle out of her nose, Lume hurriedly added more to her statement before the trench coated man punched her again. "He mentioned something about a garden, but I swear that's all I know!"

The Tails Doll began to lower his hand, letting his left arm slump to his side. As he then loosened his grip on Lume's robes, the cat's heartbeat began to slow down. That was before a blood stained knife slid out of the Tails Doll's right sleeve and into his right hand. Next second, the masked man's left hand was now the one grasping at the Duchess's maroon robes. He then spun the blade in his hand, looking down at his cowering prey with the unblinking stare of his fake, plastic eyes.

But just as he was about to bring the red stained steel into the cat's chest, Lume franticly screamed, "WAIT, THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE! PLEASE, DON'T KILL ME, AMADEUS, AND I'LL TELL YOU THE NAMES OF THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO WERE PART OF THE CEMETERY ATTACK! JUST _PLEASE_ DON'T KILL ME!"

The Tails Doll tilted his head to one side, as if pondering if he should or shouldn't spare this traitorous wench. He then stared at his crimson stained knife and in the single, small patch that was not covered in sticky blood; the Tails Doll saw a reflection of the portrait that hung above the study door. From behind his mask, he examined the beautiful painting of this money grabbing traitor's family. He looked at her husband and daughter; who were innocent of this woman's depraved betrayal of her kind. For their sakes, he would spare this whore.

After a long, tense pause, the Tails Doll lowered his knife; but he still pressed down upon the Duchess's robes. Sighing with relief, Lume promptly spilled her beans. "I didn't get the chance to find out exactly how many people Eggman used to help with this operation, but I do know about two people. The first was General Whiskers, the second in command of the Coconut Crew. He was the one who moved the robot's to and from my warehouses. The other one was Adam Mecha, the guy who runs all of Soleanna's news channels and papers. He made sure that the attack was covered up and looked like an accident."

She stopped, and screwed up her eyes; wondering if she should tell the Tails Doll or not. After seeing the knife being raised again, she decided to spill her last tin of silver beans. "There's another guy I know who works for Eggman. He wasn't involved with the attack on the cemetery, but he's been putting pressure on illegal garages for Eggman; making them give thirty percent of their earnings and equipment. If they don't, he'll arrest them. It's hard to say no to Geoffrey St John, Chief of the MCPD Police Force."

The Tails Doll was not surprised to hear that man's name. A couple of years ago, Greoffrey was once part of the Freedom Fighters vigilante gang as an undercover cop. When they discovered his secret, he was kicked out; failing the operation to bring the vigilantes in. It came as a shock to everyone when he rose to the rank of Chief after his decline in his career.

Lume, whose voice now sounded moderately calm, ended her tell-telling, saying, "Last I heard is that he was tasked with rounding up the Pro-Mutant Doctors and Medics. He managed to hire the Suppression Squad Gang to hunt them down. They think it's for some police bounty, but Eggman wants them out of the picture so Mutants have to go to his hospitals. He should be collecting them right about now."

The masked man clenched his teeth and growled; which caused the Duchess to panic for a second. He knew how important the medics were and most of all, Welshscot was one of his only friends; one of the only people who could look past the mask blood and see a lonely guy who'd lost nearly everything. He was not going to let that fat, greedy bastard get his little piggy fingers on the hybrid doctor.

True to his unsaid word, the Tails Doll released Lume; who immediately began to straighten out her robes. Turning his back on the traitor, the masked man began to make his way to the study door. Now what happened next would not have occured if the Duchess was not a proud and vengeful woman. Humiliated, the royal cat began darting her eyes round for her shotgun. Having spotted it on the far side of the room under one of the windows that lined the back wall, she carefully began to tip-toe towards it.

As the Tails Doll grabbed the brass handle, the Duchess suddenly goaded, "It doesn't matter what you do, Amadeus. Even if I die, Eggman will just find someone else to buy the land. And you have next to no chance at killing Whiskers or Adam. There security isn't like my collection of dunces..." The trench-coated man took deep calming breaths, trying his best to ignore the woman's jeers and taunts. He swung the door open and was about to push past the corpse that was hanging by colourless wire, when—

"And after Eggman's finished with the Medic's," continued the Duchess; as she began to lift the shotgun off the ground, "he's gonna send Cooper or _Metal_ after your precious _Tails_, and he's gonna squeeze that brat till his eyes p—"

But if there ever was a line, Lume had just jumped it by a mile. After releasing the doorknob, which he had just crushed in his rage, the Tails Doll launched himself at the Duchess. Slightly stunned at the fox-faced man's speed, the robed cat fired wildly, her fear now starting to return.

She smiled when she saw that her pot shot had struck the Tails Doll straight in the chest. This only lasted for a second, since the trench coated man didn't even buckle upon impact; his rage being too strong to be stopped by a few, measly pieces of lead.

The Duchess never got another chance to fire, as the Tails Doll went into arms reach. The cat didn't even get the chance to scream, as she recognised that this had been her last mistake. Two, burnt and fur gloved hands grabbed either side of the Duchess's head and automatically began to push. With his towering rage coursing through him, the Tails Doll crushed the head of Lume the cat. Blood, bone and fur flew everywhere, in fact her amber eyes landed upon the desk; goggling the check that had sealed her fate of treachery.

The masked man took deep, calming breaths; as the fresh blood began to dry on the already blood-and-ash-stained trench coat. He looked down upon the headless corpse and, in his mind, began cursing it to the ninth circle of Hell. This woman may have deserved to die, but the Tails Doll had lost control, went wild with his emotions and had broken the promise to spare this woman for the sake of her husband and daughter...

A small, scared gasp was soon caught by the masked man's ears. Turning round towards the door, his dead heart began to sink. Wearing a violet and red suit and tie, his polished black shoes stained with the blood of all the guards the Tails Doll had slaughtered and wearing a face full of dread and horror, Duke Fuego the Cat stared at the bloody figure of the Tails Doll.

His eyes soon travelled from the antenna onto of the masked man's face to the headless body of his wife. His fears coming true, tears began to well up in Fuego's emerald eyes. He fell to his knees, sobbing, "No...You can't be...not my Lume..."

The Tails Doll could only stare as the man broke down into hysteric tears. This was nothing new, he had caused the death of a couple before, but the fact that he had lost control, when he was about to walk away, just made this scene harder to swallow. And what could he do? Try and comfort him, say that 'I'm sorry for killing your wife'? But because that simple gift of God was restricted to a song he had enjoyed so much when he was alive, he couldn't even attempt to say those two, meaningful words; I'm sorry.

As he continued to blame himself for his loss of control, the Duke raised his head at the trench coated man; his sadness gradually turning into anger. He stood up, his fists shaking with grief and rage, as he ran to the wall and pulled off one of the sabres on display. "YOU _MONSTER,_" he screamed; brandishing the swords like a maniac. "YOU KILLED MY WIFE, I'LL_ KILL_ YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" And with that, he charged at the Tails Doll; tears streaming along behind him as he aimed his sword directly at the fox masked man's heart.

Not wanting to spill his blood, the blood of an innocent, the Tails Doll side stepped the Duke's attack. But this turned out to be a grave mistake. Having ran too fast, Fuego couldn't stop himself from crashing though one of the study's windows. The masked man, horrified at what had just happened, tried to save the Duke by grabbing his feet. But he was too late to stop the grief stricken cat, who had now plummeted past the window ledge.

Without pausing to think, the Tails Doll leaped after him; heights meant nothing to this immortal man. The fall was about one or so stories, which could be survived if you practice basic free running. The worst injury you can get is broken legs if you land feet first, unless you have the Tails Doll's unnatural body endurance, but if land on your neck or back it could kill you stone cold.

Rushing over to the Duke's side, who was surrounded by broken glass and his sabre had gone a good foot or so, the Tails Doll pressed his gloved hands against the royal man's neck to see if there was a sign of life. Relief flooded through him as he felt a steady pulse through his skin-tight, fur gloves; showing that the Fuego was just unconscious. But after examining the rest of her body, the masked man was brought to a saddening conclusion. Somehow he must have landed directly upon the base of his spine, as that appeared to be damaged but not fully broken. As he watched him slowly breath, the Tails Doll noticed that his legs didn't move in time with the rest of her body. To prove that his worst fears were correct, the masked man sharply tapped one of the Duke's kneecaps; earning absolutely no response.

After placing him in the recovery position, the trench-coated man stood up. As he did so, the small, purple Jacaranda petal that had stuck with the Tails Doll through all his bloody conquests, somehow managed to part its self from the dirty trench coat. The petal floated through the air until its beauty graced the unconscious body of the Duke; who now faced a life in a wheel chair.

Despite his success, the information he had managed to retrieve, his lack of control had caused his worst ever failure. Killing in untamed anger, harming an innocent man and ruining the life of their child marked the blackest day since he had become the Tails Doll.

Feeling that he needed to leave something, so there was someone to blame, the masked man slowly dug into the inner pockets of his trench coat. He soon pulled out a small mp3, an ancient relic that only held one song, which was all the world needed, to known who committed this crime; his crime.

The guards who had given chase outside the Manor's grounds soon found the Duke's unconscious body, which was followed by the discovery of each, gruesome death that had been orchestrated by the Tails Doll.

And what of the masked killer? With his mind still swarming with the guilt of his failures, he took the sea route once again. Though last time he took that route was because he needed to lessen the chance of him be seen, this time he walked upon the ocean floor, amongst the sea weed and the lonely fish, because, for the first time, he felt dirty.

So he hoped that by the time he arrived in Crisis City, his sins would be washed away with the endless currents of the sea. Failing that, then himself altogether.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note <strong>I just realised that MK was drink-driving. Points to me, for being observant!


	11. Not Worth It Anymore

**domi|note **Dammit! I _cannot _find the orange juice! Is this becoming a reoccurring reoccurrence? I bet it was the bloody fridge goblin's fault.

**Warning; **Increased use of elements from _Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity_, most of the information mentioned will be explained in a future chapter, but if you're curious, then you can look it up at a Sonic Wiki.

If you want more of an explanation, I'd recommend reading _It's a Technician Thing_ Chapter 46, because the explanation for the flight ability isn't coming until a later date. The transformation looks like it does in _Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity_, when you reach a Gear Change. Go and Youtube it, if you're that curious. And there's a sketch on my Deviant Art depicting what Wave looks like with wings.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **The Guy in the Background**, **LordCooler**, **Metalshadow1909**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek** and **DaddlerTheDalek**(And I'd thank you too **Welsh** but you're already co-writing) for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand. ~George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra."<em>**  
><strong>...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
><em>.<br>Chapter Eleven  
>.<em>  
>"And I've got to fill the blanks in the past with a verse, and we could sit around and cry but frankly you're not worth it anymore."<br>..._  
>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>A small bluebird was flying against a cloudy backdrop, soaring amongst the wispy, fluffy clouds. It soon dropped out of the mess of darkening clouds, its beady eyes fixed upon a long stretch of tarmac. Stopping for a rest, the bluebird landed evenly upon the artificial ground. It ruffled its feathers, unleashing a pure, sweet sounding bird song, the kind you would hear on a bright summer's morning. Its rest complete, the small bird opened its wings... just as an Extreme Gear came out of nowhere. Though the camera angle changed to a close up of a blonde, celebrity-like person's face, Welshscot distinctly heard the sound of a certain bird's head being smashed.<p>

"...Do people really watch this garbage?"

Having spent the past six or seven years skipping to the news or a music channel, this was the first time he had tried to follow today's brand of advertising and programs. And he already hated it. The hybrid doctor raised the remote and flicked to the next channel; desperate to escape the badly made Grand Prix commercial. Then he did the same for the sports channel, thinking, _they still have too much moustache in the soccer._ And then vacations advert. _What kinda idiot would believe Eggman would open an Interstellar Amusement Park?_

But then his thumb hovered over the next button; his grey eyes widening at a small documentary on the Dreamcast channel. The screen was split in half, the right side showing the Cathedral of Solaris while the left depicted a badly drawn necklace of bones; along with a single, black metal symbol of the sun. In the middle of the screen was an Arabian woman, who wore a greying dress and had a ridiculous pink hairstyle.

Welshscot had arrived halfway through the program, but he had been in time to catch Shahra, a historian who worked at the Metal City Library, say, "...and among the many believers who openly disapproved of the voodoo cult, The Cult of Argus, reformation to the Church of Solaris was the Dragon Mutant priestess, Marsali Scottman; ex-wife of the celebrated doctor and psychiatrist, Owen Scottman who perished in the massacre, ten years—"

The screen flickered, now showing an old music video of the 'Forget me Knots' band. The song was fast paced and exciting, but the doctor was paying no attention to it. While his mind drifted to past times, Welsh absent mind-idly dropped the TV remote, raised his uninjured hand to the opening of his shirt and pulled out a necklace that was identical to the one that had been on the screen.

He never really got on with his mother, who was obsessed with her apocalyptic beliefs of the return of the evil lowa spirit Solaris; the fire spirit who would be reborn and burn time itself. And of course the good, lowa water spirit, Argus the Imprisoner, who had saved mankind before by splitting Solaris in two; at the cost of the lives of the world's greatest civilization. She had always hated the Church of Solaris, who had gotten the two gods mixed up; Argus as the destroyer and Solaris as the saviour.

Welsh had mostly ignored his mother's advances to convert him to her voodoo religion and had spent more time with his father; determined to follow in his footsteps as a great healer of the body and mind. While he still scoffed at the idea of the lowa god's return, the hybrid had recently taken an interest in the other parts of the beliefs of the Cult of Argus. Recently meaning seven years ago, when he had first met the Tails Doll...

"I see you're a fan of the Songoose."

Welshscot whipped around, which caused his bandaged arm to flare with pain. After a brief spout of cursing, the doctor eyes soon found the owner of that remark; who had just sat down on the other side of the couch. Silver's eyes soon spun downwards and a frown appeared on his face. With a quizzical look in his eyes, he looked up at Welshscot's grey ones and asked, "Is that an Argus necklace?"

Though it did nothing but conform the white hedgehog's question, the medic hurriedly stuffed the necklace back inside his shirt. Silver did nothing for a few moments, then laughed, "Wait, let me get this straight...You're a Welsh/Scottish doctor, with a mixed Australian/Scottish/American accent who believes in Voodoo?"

He snarled at the sniggering bastard; whilst fighting a strong desire to strange him with his one hand. He settled for words instead, saying, "Whatever, 'White one'."

He immediately stopped laughing. "Will you stop calling me that?"

"Fine, Lleidr."

Silver raised an eyebrow. "Lleidr? What the hell does that mean?"

"It means 'thief'," replied the doctor; his voice crisp and blunt. Before Silver could say anything, Welshscot asked, irritated, "You don't remember me, do you?" When the hedgehog shook his head, the medic sighed and explained, "Six years ago, on the side of the Splash Cavern race track in the Underground, you tried to steal the wallet of a red headed man. He caught you in the act and started yelling Gaelic at you; with a bottle in his hand. Scarred, you used your powers and blasted him into the race track. That man, who was not even drunk, got his ribs broken, skull fractured and his limbs dislocated when he got hit by a high speeding gear. I spent six months in traction, and maybe would've died if Chaos hadn't pulled me out of the race track."

At the end of his heated rant, all Silver could say was, "...Oh..."

As a vein began to pop on Welsh's forehead, he angrily muttered, "Yea, so that's why I'm gonna call you Lleidr from now on; unless you prefer the white one?" The hedgehog seemed to deflate, making the psychiatrist victorious.

Just as he did a small victory dance on the inside, the hybrid's phone started to play the 'Team Chaotix' song. He quickly pulled out his phone, observing a message he had received from CJ, which made him smile and say, "Yes, she sent the program." He then looked at the TV, which was now showing a commercial, and pressed a button on his phone. This caused the hand held device to emit a radio frequency; designed to disrupt machines to about a six feet radius. The TV screen, to Welsh's delight, turned to static; but out of ear shot, two boards that were heading towards the sunset malfunctioned, causing two speeders to crash to the floor, yelling, "Crap! This was your idea!"

Happy with the results, the doc released the button; retuning the TV to normal. Welsh then turned to Silver, who still seemed to be down, and asked, "Hey, where does that Shadow guy sling his hoes from?"

At any other time, Silver would have made some snarky comeback. But he just huffed, dismally, "Some place called the—err Copper Domain or something..."

The hybrid thought, _Great, bloody brilliant. I wonder if the guy realises he's fucking probed—_

But his thoughts were interrupted, as the doc's phone rang again. After talking a swift glance at the new text message, which took only a second to read, Welshscot stated, "Why does that man always drive drunk? I swear to Argus, it'll get him killed one day!"

Silver was aroused from his sulk, while I began to grab for the remote, and asked, "Who are you talking about?"

"M Knucks," replied the hybrid; who was now flicking through channels. "He's coming over, something about a 'Cooper' and a 'shape', and judging the fact that some of the words are legible, he's riding his gear while being tipsy. He also wants me to watch the news, so something important might be going down."

Silver, decided that the others needed to see this, stated shouting for the others to 'get their asses over here'.

Welshscot finally arrived on the news channel, wondering what all the fuss was about.

* * *

><p><em>domi<em>

* * *

><p>"How does it look, Doc?"<p>

Amy was hovering over Doctor Quack like a stubborn cloud of smog as he inspected Tails' arm. He pressed his hands into the crevice of the elbow, eyes widening when he saw Tails wince.

"Am I going to be able to race next week?" the fox asked, rolling his shoulder to loosen the knots in his neck.

"I wouldn't recommend it," he said, scratching his head absently.

"Why? It won't be healed by then?"

"No child," he shook his head, "I wouldn't recommend it _at all_."

Tails rolled his eyes when he noticed Amy making an 'I told you so' face over the doctor's shoulder. She was still highly against his participation in the Grand Prix, but she was one of the only ones that were. The other inhabitants of the Black Arms either kept their opinions to themselves or supported him, which at this point, would only include Sonic.

"Think about it Miles, would your mother be proud to see her son entering in a death race?"

Tails narrowed his eyes and turned his head away from the duck, hissing quietly when the doctor made him move the bone experimentally. He sank deeper into the couch, his claws digging into the arm of the chair as he ground his teeth together.

"Am I going to be right to _race,_ Doc?" Tails persisted, ignoring the angry glare that Amy was sending over his shoulder.

Doctor Quack sighed sadly, realising he'd crossed the line by bringing in Tails' mom, "Yes, with Chaos' regenerative abilities you should be right as rain by Monday, maybe even Thursday if you don't work on gear excessively until then. But the pain will _not _fade until it's healed. I wouldn't recommend using pain killers until you speak to Chaos and Tikal, or someone that's had this ceremony performed on them."

Welshscot, who had been resting on the other side of the couch said, "They've performed it on me; mild pain killers are okay."

Marine appeared from overhead, sticking her head over the balcony, "Any of ya seen the likes of Snippy anywhere?"

A collective 'No' was her response.

"Why do you need Heartnet anyway?" Tails asked.

"Folks 're askin' for 'im; someone from the Castle Town Orphanage needs him," she explained, turning her head when Silver stumbled down the stairs, he's been moving around a lot this morning.

"He's still in bed. Do you want me to relay the message?"

"If that ain't too much of a problem, Sleepin' Beauty," she grinned, earning a growl on the hedgehog's part while he turned around and trudged back up the stairs.

"Where's Knuckles and Shadow?" Marine asked.

"Shadow's disappeared," Amy said, "Knuckles has gone to work."

"What about Blaze?"

"Down in the Garage," she replied, eyes flicking over to the television which had been muted when the Doctor had come in. The Doctor bid his farewell and things quietened down after that. Amy sat herself down next to the injured kitsune, grabbing the remote and waving Marine down, "Go and get her, there's… they're doing a news report on her house."

The racoon sauntered down, breaking into a sprint when she saw what had flashed onto the screen next to the news reporter (Omochao's) head; The Jacaranda Slaughter.

Amy turned up the volume and the room turned deathly quiet, even as Silver and Caleb made it down from the top floor, still looking sleepy.

"_Tragedy struck The Violet Manor yesterday when the bodies of more than fifty guards /and/ the Violet Duchess' were found amidst a sea of blood."_

"Solaris…" Silver muttered, as completely astounded as the rest of the Black Arms.

Blaze opened the door the garage and stood next to Silver behind the couch, "What did I miss?"

Tails turned to regard Blaze with something akin to horror, watching her eyes glaze over as the information fazed through her, leaving her as still as a statue. He turned back to the screen, where Omochao was now flashing warnings that any young children should be sent into a different room.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, flashes of gruesome gore and dead bodies littered all over the grounds of the estate dug them further into state of deafening silence. Horror filtered through the faces of everyone in the Black Arms, especially those that had been there. Caleb couldn't take the collected horror, anguish and disgust of all the residence and promptly disappeared to be sick somewhere outside of the garage.

Tails turned away from the screen, catching sight of Welshscot in the process, who didn't seem as affected as the rest of the Garage inhabitants. Actually, whenever a new body flashed onto the screen, a sense of recognition flashed through his gray eyes.

He turned back to the report, skin crawling as the pictures would not stop, _"Neighbours report that there had been a break in before the slaughter, and all communication from The Violet Manor ceased completely moments before the slaughter began."_

Tails looked down at his lap, ashamed at himself. If he knew something like that would happen, he would have _never _destroyed the communication system. He was increasingly horrified when he saw the body of the man he had bitten as a fox kit, the man who had probably killed his mother, bleeding from his eyes and lying in a bed of wires that had electrocuted him.

"_When reporters reached the site of the massacre, the few remaining guards had been stunned into shock. Only one remained able to say anything comprehensive, recalling a brown fox, and what seemed to be The Tails Doll, who left behind an mp3 with but one song on it; 'Can you feel the sunshine?' by T.J. Davis, which is considered to be the Tails Doll's signature song."_

Blaze's breathing hitched and Silver wrapped an arm around her shoulder comfortingly.

"_They found the Duchess' mutilated body in the study and outside, the Duke who police assume was pushed out the window. He now remains in a critical state, residing in The Royal Court hospital."_

The purple cat was a royal, she did not sob, she did not wail, she simply stared at the screen like a frozen puppet as the tears dripped down her cheeks.

"_Their daughter, Duchess Blaze seems to have completely disappeared. Speculation falls to Silver the hedgehog, a youth from Crisis City that is often seen hanging around The Violet Manor. If anyone has any information about either of them, please contact…"_

* * *

><p><em>Resonance (Instrumental) <em>by T.M. Revolution

* * *

><p>Blaze's breath became laboured and Marine immediately went to her friend's side, Silver turned her in an attempt to hug her, but what she did next completely shocked both of them. She raised her hand and slapped Marine way, sending the raccoon flying back. Then she elbowed Silver in the gut and punched him in the face, slugging him across the cheek.<p>

"THIS IS ALL _YOUR _FAULT!" she screamed, voice breaking with staggered succession.

"Blaze-!" Marine tried to interject, nursing her injured face, but Blaze wasn't listening to any of it.

"If you'd _told_ me where you were going, I wouldn't have gotten worried!" she yelled, turning to Silver who had staggered back onto his feet.

She performed a swift roundhouse kick, sending him to the ground again, "And _you!_ If you hadn't broken me out of The Manor,_supporting _my stupid urges to break free, then she'd still be alive!"

She turned to Welshscot, who was innocently trying to get off the couch when Blaze's eyes locked with his gray ones, "_Hey! _You're rumoured to know Tails Doll!" she ran forward to grip the front of the medic's shirt, "Tell me _what_ in Solaris' name he was doing at my home?" when Welshscot didn't answer she slapped him.

"Blaze! Stop it!" Amy shrieked.

Blaze was about to strike him again, but Tails felt like they should stop the violence and promptly leapt up from the couch to defend him, the worst mistake he could have made because he received a horrid blow to the solar plexus, stealing all his breath in mere seconds, "You _stupid_ kit! Had to go and screw up the control room so that no one could call for help!"

Tails' legs crumpled from beneath him as he tried not to choke, lances of pain spreading from his stomach to everywhere else in an instant. Silver got up and took Blaze's hand, forcing the distressed cat to look at him. Although she wasn't making the usual crying sounds, the tears were still flowing rapidly, but she didn't seem to notice they were there.

The yellow fox looked up through teary eyes, wiping them away with the back of his hand.

_Damn! That hurt._

Silver's gloves started to singe, but he held steadfast, locking eyes with her properly with a calm, sincere aura, "It's alright, Blaze. Calm down."

"_CALM DOWN?"_ she screeched, "Where is that new sarcastic friend of yours? He deserves some broken bones _just _for helping you!"

"We need to talk calmly, and not act so impulsive," he winced when her grip became incredibly tight. Obviously the temperature in her palms was rising.

"Why don't _you _try it sometime? None of you might remember your parents properly, _but I do!_ My mother might have been corrupt and harsh, but she _protected me! _She made sure _my _nature was kept secret so…" she shook off Silver's hand, and Tails saw that it had been burned through, and Silver's fur had been singed so badly he would need medical attention. Why didn't he just let her go? "So I wouldn't have to live _like you_." She might have directed it at the entire group, but her eyes were locked with Silver when she said it. Noticing the hurt and betrayal in Silver's eyes she scowled, turned and headed for the garage entrance, slamming the door.

Not ten seconds after Blaze had made her dramatic exit, Silver and Marine had gone after her. Tails tried to, but was immediately held down by Sonic and Amy, who told them that if he wanted to race he wouldn't dare try. Ten minutes after they had calmed everyone down, Amy was sent to go find Caleb if he was still near Black Arms at all, should he run into a murderous cat that wouldn't hesitate to burn him into charcoal. Three minutes after Amy left they heard commotion from downstairs, enough to bring Jet and Wave out of their collective rooms. Storm appeared from the garage door, followed quickly by a red-haired human Tails recognise instantly.

"Metal Knuckles?" Welshscot asked, trying to get up from the couch, but he still looked a little fazed from what had just happened before, "What the heck are you doing here?"

He'd stolen the words right out of Tails mouth. The fox was still behind the couch sitting on the floor, so the bionic human wouldn't be able to see him.

"Where's the little Prower?" he asked urgently, the speed making it hard to understand him properly.

"Hey-" he was about to protest the 'little' comment when Metal Knuckles found him behind the couch and hoisted him up. He grabbed onto Tails bad hand and yanked it up. The fox's eyes widened before he let out a hiss, instinctively shooting his leg out to kick the human's shin, making him let go.

"Shit-!" Tails' muscles tensed as he tried to ignore the rocketing pain shooting through his arm.

"Hey! Stop being difficult! You're in serious danger right now and we need to get you away from the Arms right _now!_"

Welshscot's voice filtered through his laboured breathing, a calm and slightly irritated tone evident in his words, whether that was due to Metal Knuckles stupidity or the fact that he had just been assaulted by a pyrokinetic kitty he couldn't tell, "Yes, but tugging on the kid's _broken _arm isn't going to speed up the process."

"'_Broken'_ you say? Damn, sorry Miles, but we've really gotta get you away from this pla-" the human said.

"Why?" Welshscot and Sonic asked at the same time.

"-ce and get your arm in a sodding _sling. _Ah, what? Oh Solaris, Welsh-Doc, _he_ told me that Cooper is going to make his move on the kid."

"Who the heck is Cooper?" Sonic and Tails asked at the same time. The Babylon Rogues broke out in hushed whispers when the name was mentioned, making Sonic and Tails the only people who didn't know what was happening.

"That's not important right now; we just need you away from The Arms right-" he was interrupted by the piercing shatter of glass as a window from the second floor broke down, and a whizzing whistling noise sliced the air. Tails heart stopped beating when he realised what had happened. Standing in front of him, with a smoking bullet in between his index finger and thumb was Metal Knuckles, who had just stopped a bullet from piercing the frozen kit's heart.

When he regained his ability to move, he looked through the window, and could find no trace of firearm holding snipers beyond his vision. He didn't need any reassurance after that, letting Metal Knuckles hoist him up from his good arm, "Wait a minute, the Black Arms! Who is going to protect Amy and-?"

"We'll handle The Black Arms while you're gone."

Well, Tails would certainly admit that he wasn't expecting that. Jet had just offered his services to _benefit _him. But it's not like he had any choice in the matter. Amy wasn't mutant, and against a threat like this one, he would really worry for her if she was fending for herself. At least the Babylon Rogues could handle themselves; he'd feel better knowing that they were on her side.

"Okay."

He gathered up his discarded sling and gave them one final glance before Metal Knuckles pushed him out the door. He was incredibly reluctant to leave his home, but he had never felt so scared for his friends, afraid that his presence would endanger them if he were to stay.

"We'll protect them, we promise."

Wave had never said something so reassuring before. And for some reason… he trusted her.

"Sonic, you take Prower to the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre; you could do it way faster than I could."

Sonic had scooped Tails up and zoomed off without an answer, but Metal Knuckles knew he was obeying the command.

"Welsh-Doc," Metal Knuckles said, "You said you wanted to come to the Garden Centre?"

"But the heat-!"

"'As never been as hot as it is now! Hurry the hell up, before he reaches this place!"

They both scrambled into Metal Knuckles's power type; bike Extreme Gear, buckled up and hit the gas.

* * *

><p><em>Hero <em>by Skillet

* * *

><p>"Jet…?"<p>

The _'Are you ready for this?' _lingered on her lips for a moment before dying completely when she saw the fiery determination in his ice cold eyes. She looked to Storm, who had a mirrored look of worry on his features as well. She knew this would test Jet's emotional capacity beyond its limits, and he never did learn the difference between bravery and stupidity as well.

"Yeah?" he asked, opening the garage door and moving to the already finished gears. He took his own out of its charger stand and pulled down the edges of his gloves, revealing an intricately decorated bracelet covered in the ancient scrawl of the Babylonians. She and Storm adorn one too, hidden underneath their gloves along with their signature tattoos.

"Why did you do that?"

He knew what she meant. They'd been training for this for years, after the events of what the Solean's called 'The Crimson Night', they'd battled to reach the moment where they could meet this metal monster, but they'd never thought he'd come to them.

"Because I… because I wanted to."

She shook her head, because she knew he was lying. He _needed _to destroy this fiend, to ever find inner peace he needed to be blown to oblivion, brought back and destroyed twice over. She couldn't understand Jet's pain, but she would support him all the same, she'd promised _him_ after all, just like Storm did.

Storm piped up, despite being the strongest out of all of them, he was still as scared as she was, "Boss. You don't really think?"

Jet closed his eyes and shook his head, "If you ask me honestly?... I don't think we _can _defeat him. But we _need _to know what we'll be up against… and…"

Wave watched as Jet's fist slowly closed in on itself until it was shaking violently, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as his eyebrows knitted together. He dropped his hand, casting it aside as if it was some poisoned fruit, "Go find the pink hedgehog, make sure that she's in the safest part of the building. Storm, see if you can find some fire arms."

"Boss?"

"I'll be saying 'Hello' to our metal friend from the roof top," Jet sent them a 'be careful' look before Wave took off running outside of the garage, looking for the pink hedgehog. She found her outside in the empty parking lot, gazing out towards the surrounding city absently. Wave scowled, running forward and tugging on her arm.

"What? Oh, I can't find Heartnet," Amy said.

"Don't worry about him right now, just…" the swallow scratched at her bandana-clad head a moment when Amy tilted her head to the side. "What do you suppose would be the safest part of the Black Arms?"

"Oh," Amy said, "that'd probably be the bomb shelter Tails has underneath the garage. He said we could use if it gets too dangerous."

"Good, get in there! Now, it's about to get more dangerous than you could ever comprehend."

"What? Why?"

"I'll explain everything later," the swallow snarled, hearing the sound of rockets getting closer and closer.

"But-!" Amy persisted.

"Listen Pinkie, if you don't head into the bomb-shelter right now, then you won't be _able _to hear the explanation, kay? So go down now, and we'll tell you when it's safe to come out," she demanded, it was a tone that she usually reserved for when Storm or Jet were being really stubborn, but she really needed to make sure this girl was safe. She could tell the hedgehog wanted to ask more information, but she decided to comply, nodding before heading inside and locating the bomb shelter.

After a moment or two, Wave followed her into the garage, snatching her Type-W Extreme Gear and a few sticks of dynamite, noting that Storm had already taken his too. She looked around the garage, spying Storm among the side of the tools that Shadow frequented more often. Her attention was ripped away however, when a crash from outside was heard, along with bullet fire. Wave threw down her gear and stepped in the thrusters, tipping the anti-gravity controls over to gain height to see what was happening.

She'd prepared herself for this moment for a long time, but the sight of him still shocked her beyond words. The metal monster moving with a set of rockets in his feet was blasting Jet with a set of guns that were built into his arms, firing like an MG 42, but only seventy-five percent its size. She didn't know a lot about fire-arms, she normally didn't need to use them. What she did know, she learnt from Jet and Storm's addicting video games. His blue armour glinted maliciously in the midday sun, red eyes unfeeling and vicious.

He was human shaped, as his previous nature would suggest, and there was a huge difference between this robot and the Blue Blur she had been sharing kitchen facilities with. He did however, have spikes running from the back of his head and down his back, his chest was emblazoned with what looked like the inside of a thruster, and the black arches around his eyes betrayed very little emotion in those piercing red rings meant to symbolise eyes. Hanging from bits of his metallic armour, were small bits of fabric that betrayed what was once a uniform, including a hat resting atop his head bearing the Soleanna Royal Guard crest.

She shot back into the garage, grabbing Storm, who tossed her a gun of her own, Hotchkiss Type Universal, a semi-automatic. She slung the ammo around her neck and turned her gear around, moving to the side of the garage so that she could sneak up on their intimidating adversary.

Wave didn't think they would be meeting him so soon.

The former Soleanna Royal Guard…

Metal Sonic.

And now; Jet's greatest enemy, even more-so than Eggman.

She didn't need to wait for Jet's commands, too busy dodging bullets himself to give her anything to work with. She stuck the wick of her weapons into her thrusters as soon as she saw Storm approach from behind as well, waiting for the second the wick would hit the stick and chucking it at the robot as Storm released open fire at him.

The result of the explosion blew all their boards back, as if they had been hit with a huge wall of wind. Not missing a beat, she reached for another dynamite stick and thrust it back into the electricity of her board, as soon as she caught a glimpse of blue in the cloud her previous bomb created, she threw again.

The impossible flash of blue sped out of the cloud and tore her down before she could even blink her eyes. He had a metallic hold on her neck that was quashing her windpipe and making her blank out as her board fell from beneath her and clattered to the floor. She knew her lungs were going to give out on her any second now if he kept this up, her eyes were bulging out of their skull before something huge and gray _slammed _into Metal Sonic with such a force that he managed to _detach_ his arm.

Scrambling in the air, she detached the robotic limbs grip on her neck, noticing that she had seven seconds before she hit the floor and possibly broke her legs. She threw off her bracelet and caught it in her fingertips as her arms started to glow. The quick rush of heat that normally accompanied the transformation was a warning flare inside her body as the membrane in her arms grew and the feathers spread out to catch the wind. Three seconds from hitting the ground, she spread her newfound wings and stopped the momentum enough to cushion her fall. Her arms were still attached to her newfound wings, and she spread her hands out to steady herself before getting back up again.

She threw the bracelet back on, making the wings disappear in another flash of blinding light so she could move with her arms again, and sprinted for her Gear, getting it functional again and looking up to see what was happening. Metal Sonic was still shooting with his other arm, this time at Storm while Jet tried to knock him from the side. Unfortunately, Storm wasn't as much of a target as Wave and Jet, so the bullets were actually landing in his gear and shooting holes _straight through_ it. She had never known a weapon so powerful. She threw Metal Sonic's other hand inside the garage to help Storm out.

His board wasn't going to take more damage; it was already smoking, sparking and swaying. Three more landed bullets put the board out of commission all together, and with that, Storm was falling from seven stories up in the air. She kicked up the speed on her board and motioned for Storm to grab the end of hers while Jet distracted Metal. When Storm had successfully caught the end of her board, it dipped from his weight a little and she turned around, pulling up his gloves and forcing the bracelet from his hands. She placed it in his giant palm as he let go and his own wings started to form.

Jet looked exhausted where he was, still dodging Metal Sonic's rounds as the robot's voice floated over the gunshots with a sickening clarity.

**"****You birds move in a peculiar way."**

"Can it, scrap-metal!" Jet growled as Wave open fired at the robot, breaking one of the robot's shoe thrusters.

**"****You, little green one, hold the most familiar expression."**

Shells fell in an endless wave of clinks on the cement ground beneath them, but Metal Sonic's armour didn't even dent. She had been so afraid of this moment. In her heart of hearts, she had been hoping they would be able to nullify Metal Sonic before this could have happened. She watched as Jet's features stared blankly back at the blue robot.

**"****Ah, I remember now. Your father held the same look in his eyes as he screamed and begged for mercy."**

"You fucking _monster!_" Jet screeched, his battle cry rung out across the city as he let go of his board, removing the bracelet from around his wrist engulfing himself in white light. The bracelet, inscribed with the words of his ancestors, started to glow as he held it in his talons and threw his Extreme Gear at the robot with the force of a charging rocket. The force of Jet's Ark of the Cosmos astounded Wave, as she had never seen him use it for such violence before. He flapped his wings once before zeroing in on the stunned robot, who had _finally _achieved a dent in his armour from the impact.

**"****I loved the hollow snap of his wings as I crushed them in my hands."**

He latched himself onto Metal Sonic's frame before he had the chance to retaliate and _smashed_ his fist through his black rimmed eye. Their adversary regained composure and while Jet worked to hinder the robot in any way possible she lit some more dynamite, screaming at Jet to gain some distance. Jet didn't hear her however, and was too late to react once Metal Sonic's talons reached the thin membrane of his wing and tore at it maliciously.

Metal Sonic raised his right arm and aimed his inbuilt guns in between the hawks eyes, **"Tell me where the two-tailed fox is, or join your father in oblivion."**

"Go to _hell, _murderer," Jet seethed, preparing for the bullet to strike him when an amazing force hit Metal Sonic from below and launched him into the air, causing Jet to spiral out of control. Storm had thrown himself at the robot, bringing him about in a graceful arc, letting gravity take control to bring Metal Sonic to the ground with an almighty _crash_ that rocked the foundation of the Black Arms.

Wave saw Jet's flailing body plummeting to the earth and she swore under her breath as she calculated the time it would take for his body to hit the ground. Even if he spread his wings, his injured membrane would still make him fall.

"Crap… _GEAR CHANGE!_"

Her Extreme Gear received the voice command immediately, shifting parts of its nanotechnology to physically change its form into an arrow-like design that made carrying two people and flying much easier.

**"****You **_**will**_** regret this, son of The Legendary Wind Master."**

She caught Jet, bracing the impact right before he hit the ground, landing soundly on her control panel. She forced her Gear to make a quick landing near the small crater in the ground, only finding a flabbergasted Storm looking into the distance.

"He got away," he murmured absently, a thought that brought devastation and relief to Wave at the same time.

"What are you waiting for?" Jet demanded, trying to get up despite how hurt he looked, "Go after him!"

Storm and Wave looked at each other, wincing at the crooked value of Jet's voice, knowing how much pain he was in. They both went over to their boss and enveloped him in a hug, made warm and scratchy due to Storm's wings still being out. When he let go, he placed his bracelet back on, making the wings disappear as he hoisted the injured Jet up, who was trying to put his Ark of the Cosmos back on.

"No, no…" she murmured gently, as if she was trying to calm down a frightened child, "Do you remember what happened the last time Storm sustained a wing injury and put the Cosmos back on?"

Jet stopped struggling after that, still harbouring a dark, painful look as she let Wave take the bracelet away, placing it on her other hand so that she wouldn't forget about it, "You know as well as I do that going after Metal Sonic right now would be a bad idea. My necklace analysed all the information it could during that battle, and we'll soon find a way to take him down, Jet."

"I'm sorry, Boss," Storm whispered quietly, silently examining the blood dripping down from Jet's fist, black shards embedded into the skin.

"Me too," Wave agreed, watching as Jet placed his head in his hands. The two walked back into the garage silently, ignoring how Jet's shoulders shook as they carried him inside.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note <strong>This story just isn't doing what I tell it to. I'm researching Babylon right now (not the Sonic-screwed-up version) the _real _one, and decided that I might be using some aspects of that culture. Very fascinating stuff. Using elements of _Prince of Persia_ too! Whoop!

Just a teensy little bit of explanation for you'se; as you have probably already figured out 'Cooper' is Metal Sonic's _real_ last name, just like Zackary Angel is Metal Knuckles' real name, and he was (is?) _also_ human. All of the Royal Guards have assumed different names since The Massacre. More mystery for you! Trolllolol.

**ღ**


	12. Lights Camera Action

Thanks to **The Guy in the Background**, **Exploder**, **HalfWright**, **Metalshadow1909**, **LordCooler**, **SmallSpek**, **Pixelated Firefly**, **WelshScot** and **superechidna** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. ~Chinese Proverb<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twelve  
>.<em>  
>"You better know your lines, 'cause one take is all we get. You go hit the lights; I'll set up the camera. Let's get to the action."<br>…_  
><em>_Written by WelshScot_

* * *

><p>"No! No way am I letting you drive drunk!"<p>

"I'm not drunk, I'm _tipsy!_"

"M Knucks, you're talking to a guy whose power depends on Whiskey! I can tell if someone is drunk; and you're heading straight for that dumpster!"

"Welsh-Doc, for the last time, I am n—ARGUS'S BLOODY TENTACLES!"

Luckily, just before the red-head's bike gear collided with the smelly green dumpster, Welshscot managed to pull MK off the seat. They crashed and rolled across the alleyway floor; an experience that did no favours for the hybrid's damaged arm.

Getting gingerly to their feet, wiping off the dirt from their clothes, the duo surveyed the crash site; which had the red bike, covered all over in toilet paper, food wrappings and a used Johnny... Yeah, MK wasn't pleased. He ran to his gear, cursing the damn VB he had drunk before heading to the Black Arms, and began wiping off the worst of the garbage. Not wanting to sit on a seat that had just had a used Pizza Hut box sprawled upon it, Welsh and MK settled for running to the Garden Centre; with Welshscot leading the way while MK pulled his bike along.

As they rounded a corner, to an empty main street near the Megalo station, the duo caught sight of a bunch of familiar faces. Two looked concerned and frightened (and maybe a little sad), one looked scared shitless and the last face was burning with homicidal rage. While Marine and Silver begged Blaze to stop, the fire cat continued to throw punch after punch at Caleb; which the brown fox managed to doge but only by the skin of his teeth.

"Holy _fuck, _Blaze," yelled the fox. "I couldn't have done _anything_ to stop the Tails Doll before he got into the manner, so _calm down!_" She responded to this by unleashing a blast of fire from her finger tips. Caleb managed to doge this, but still received a singe mark on his jacket. The fox then clenched his fist, his brow furrowing, until...his eyes widened in shock; while he stumbled to the ground. "How the _hell_ did you get from super _angry_to _super horny?_" This caused even Blaze to stop, confused and bewildered.

"Well, some people like it ruff..." heads turned towards the new voice, which belonged to the sling-armed red-head, who continued, jokily, "...or it's just that I've blocked your mental probing, again. We can't have your brains being fried by all that anger; that wall behind you looks quite fine. It'd be a shame to see it being covered in your grey matter."

In any other situation, Caleb would've made some snarky retort; but since he was still recovering from the sudden urge to rip... anyway, he wasn't in the mood so he just watched as Welshscot and MK approached the pyro cat.

The angry royalist, her burning eyes now aiming at the new arrivals, raised her hands, causing fireballs to appear around her finger tips, and roared, "You two! I _know_ that you know that soulless monster, Tails Doll! Tell me everything about him, or I'll-"

But Welsh wasn't paying any attention, as he was now trying to restrain MK with one hand; for the moment she had called TD a 'soulless monster', the gang leader had dropped his bike and had charged at the cat; his own, more deadly rage now pumping through his veins.

"M Knucks," Welsh hissed hurriedly; trying to calm the man down while holding onto his shoulder. "M Knucks—Zackary!" The man stopped struggling, but his bionic hands were still bawled into fists. "Zackary, let me handle this; alright?"without saying a thing, MK relaxed his fingers; but still glared at Blaze with a look of contempt.

With MK now calm, the hybrid turned to the cat; a blank, unreadable expression clinging to his face. He began to walk slowly forwards, and began talking in a calm, yet cool tone, "So, Blaze. Who are you angry at?" everyone else looked at the doctor with disbelief. Hadn't he been listening?

"Of course you're angry at TD," he continued, "and you say you're angry at your friends. But is there someone else? Is there someone who you blame most of all, but try and block because you don't want to admit it?" He had touched a nerve, for Blaze began growling at him; shaking in suppressed rage. "Is the reason why you blame your friends, friends who couldn't have possible foreseen your mother's murder, because deep down, you blame, not yourself, hell not even TD, but your mother herself—?"

With a scream of hellish fury, the cat launched herself at Welsh; her fist blazing with violet flames that were aimed directly at Welsh's head. Silver, shocked that Welsh had managed to make Blaze angrier than before, tried to stop the cat from killing the doctor... but stopped when he saw that the hybrid, his face still blankly calm, grabbed Blaze's wrist with his free hand. The flames, though they licked at his skin, didn't burn him; so Welsh managed to put pressure on Blaze's wrists, causing her to cry out with pain and stop dead in her tracks.

"My mother," began Welsh, his tone the same as ever, "is a dragon mutant. I think I might have picked up some immunity to fire. Wouldn't you agree?" he then starred straight into the eyes of the cat, who was still struggling and said, "Now, listen to what I have to say, and if you try and burn me, I'll break your wrist. So just listen to me, ok?"

"You admitted yourself that you're mother's corrupt, maybe even your father, and that board with Eggman's logo suggests that they were dealing with the wrong people, and you know it. Now, saying TD is a soulless monster? Brutal killer, yes, but he is far from a monster. Behind the mask and the blood, he's just a guy who's lost everything he once held dear. But when he was angry at the world, he didn't lose his standards; he didn't go hurting everyone around him or go and burn his friend's hand while they just tried to comfort him." Blaze's eyes widened before aiming them at Silver; observing his scorched palms.

"You feel angry and alone; the life you knew is gone, your mother is gone and maybe your father as well," continued Welsh; whose voice sounded more sympathetic now. "You don't want to remember them as corrupt politicians, you want to remember them as your caring parents, but you don't have to burn your friendship to do that..." Unexpectedly, he let go of Blaze's wrist and stretched his free arm to the side. "So, hit me."

Blaze, whose eyes were plagued with tears, blinked in surprise. "Well? Hit me, hit me all you want. If you need to hit something, better a stranger who won't hold a grudge. So go on."

She hesitated; bewildered at the hybrid's strange invitation, then she drew back her fist and punched the medic with all her might. She then punched him in the stomach, then his face once more. The doctor accepted each blow, buckling under each attack. When she began to back away, her hands now shaking, Welsh straightened up and did a 'still standing, hit me so more if you want' gesture while blood started to drip from his nostril. She raised her fist once more... but slowly lowered it. She turned round, ran to Silver and Marine, and enveloped them in a hug; tears streaming down her face. "I-I'm so sorry..." she cried; her anger repealed with calm, but also misery. Silver and Marine, stunned at Blaze's uncharacteristic breakdown, patted her softly.

Just then, a Police car rounded the corner. Welsh saw it and started to wave at it; trying to get its attention. MK and the others, having not excepted Welsh to do anything weirder, shouted, "What are you doing?"

But the car was soon upon them. It screeched to a halt, and as everyone (except Welsh) prepared o fight, a door opened and a brown haired girl, wearing a black jacket and red jeans, stepped out. She turned to Welsh, and cringed when she saw his bloody face, asking, "Argus, Welshaldy! What happened to you?"

"Therapy, CJ." Blaze bit her lip, while the others just goggled at him.

A few minutes later, everyone but Caleb (who said he was going somewhere else) were in CJ's borrowed cop car. Metal Knuckles' gear was in the booth and the man himself was sitting on the back seat. Marine sat in the middle and Silver sat on the right, with Blaze sitting on his knee; the idea of it having caused Silver to blush madly.

Welshscot was sitting in the passenger's seat, rubbing his bruised face. Blaze, having completely calmed down, leaned forwards and said, sincerely, "Thank you, Welshscot. And I'm sorry for what I did to you."

"No worries," replied the medic.

After awhile, when everyone was in a sense of security, Welsh then added, "That'll be 50,000 rings for the session."

Blaze gave a startled cry of protest and was about to complain, before the hybrid stared to laugh, heartily. And he continued to laugh, all the way to the Garden Centre.

* * *

><p><em>Talking To The Moon <em>by Bruno Mars

* * *

><p>Tails had been hiding out at the Mystic Ruin Garden Centre for the better half of four days now. His injured arm was completely healed and now he was restless to get back home. Everyone in the Nocturnes gang seemed <em>very <em>against that notion, thus the reason why he was stuck in an epic game of hide and seek, looking for an exit route while making sure that he would not be detected.

Unfortunately, his adorable appearance had made him a hit with most of the girls, including Julie-Su, Tikal and Fina, so he normally found himself in their company enduring embarrassing kisses and hugs that ended up with his face smooshed up against their cleavage. And while some guys envied that (and he _knew _Metal Knuckles got a kick out of watching it), he actually _liked _breathing.

He'd been trying to find a phone to use and stealing the television remote to find out what was happening, but being the youngest there, there was always someone to stop him from watching anything he wanted to know about. He wanted to know if the Black Arms were alright, firstly because he had pretty much _abandoned _work, and he didn't know if the Babylon Rogues had been able to protect everyone. Was his house in shambles? Was his garage alright? Did they manage to find Blaze?

While he was sitting behind the plant he hid and pondered a way to find an exit. He'd been doing that a lot lately; pondering, thinking seriously about his situation. Blaze might not have come around, she was seriously angry that her parents had been killed and hurt. The Babylon Rogues might have been hurt with the mysterious danger that Metal Knuckles had mentioned. And then there was The Jacaranda Slaughter… What the _hell_ was the Tails Doll doing there? To think that he might have been seconds from _dying_ if he'd encountered the masked man.

He needed to get back home, and if no one was going to tell him who this 'Cooper' was, then he'd find out for himself. It was a simple matter of locating the door that led to the upper levels of the Garden and dismantling the security system before-

"Miles?"

Crap. He hadn't even located the exit yet and he'd already been found.

He sheepishly stepped out of the shade of the plant, facing Fina, the bionic woman looking a little curious as to what he was doing.

"What are you doing?"

It was really weird, Fina acted _nothing _like her sister. Tails was still trying to ascertain as to why this woman was so familiar. He knew she had been friends with his parents, but another reason, another _person_ came to mind whenever he thought about her.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Fina's hand as it slowly ran through his fringe, scratching him behind the ears. His cheeks heated up and he flinched instinctively, frightening her. Her blue eyes widened, as if she hadn't realised what she was doing, "I'm sorry! It's just, last time I saw you, you were so little and, oh Miles, you were _so _adorable. You loved having your ears scratched."

Tails smiled a little, scratching the back of his neck as his cheeks became redder, "You can call me 'Tails', Fina. Did I?"

She nodded, clasping her hands behind her back, "Oh yes, I believe last time I saw you, you were three years old and sitting on the kitchen counter while your mother was baking cookies."

"Man, I miss her cooking," Tails said absently, and Fina agreed with the sentiment.

"Yes and your father came up to you, it was after his promotion, and Rosemary was gushing over it. She asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up." Fina sighed happily before she noticed that Tails was waiting for an answer, "You said you wanted to be a banana."

They both broke out into a small little giggle fit before Tails regained his composure, "How did my parents react?"

"Oh, your mother tried to make you say it again so that she could record it," Fina laughed, gaining a serious note to the last bit of her sentence, "and Amadeus said that he would be proud of you regardless."

A strange warmth blossomed in Tails heart that he hadn't felt in a long time, but then he remembered that _no, _he wasn't three anymore, and memories like those were exactly that, _just _memories. He sighed sadly and Fina caught on, "So what were you doing?"

For some weird reason, he felt like he could trust Fina. They shared a bond linked through his parents, and maybe it was deep enough to instil a little trust in, "I'm looking for a way out."

She looked shocked for a moment, and then a little sad, her human eye and bionic optic working together to convey a _lot _of emotion, "Do you not like this place?"

"No! No!" he insisted, "I just, I really need to head back to my home. I left everything in a horrible state with my friends and stuff… I need to fix the mess I made."

She looked left and right, making sure the corridor was empty before beckoning him in one direction, "Don't tell Metal Knuckles I did this for you."

The fox's eyes widened, "He wouldn't kick you out, would he?"

She laughed, waving her hand dismissively and for a second, he caught a glimpse of how beautiful she must have looked before The Massacre, "Oh no, he's too much of a softie to do that." He had trouble imagining any aspect of Metal Knuckles as soft, "He's probably just berate me for a bit and then forget about it."

He remembered aspects of Metal Knuckles too, from when he was little, but these were brief flashes, he did not stay around as long as Fina did, all Tails remembered was being spoilt silly whenever he came around; candy, toy cars/helicopters/trains, picture books ect. "Don't think badly of him, he considers you a nephew of sorts."

Tails nodded and silenced himself when they reached a pair of glass doors that uncovered the foliage of The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre. Fina went into one of the storage rooms and found an Extreme Gear, brought it online and handed it to him, "The password to unlock the Gear is 'Pachacamac', and it's only got around three quarters of fuel left."

He nodded to her, smiling, "Thank you, Fina."

"Oh, and Tails?"

"Yes?"

"… I'm sorry, about what my sister did to you."

He regarded her silently for a few minutes, nodding robotically before answering, "Don't worry about it." An idea crossed his mind and he waited a moment before asking, "Have you got a pen?" She went back into the store room and retrieved one, giving him a questioning look, "I need to write something down for you."

"I'll just write it on my hand, go ahead."

Tails recited a sequence of numbers for her, telling her to write the initials C.H. above the number, "Could you relay that number to Welshscot for me? Caleb Heartnet would probably want to hear from him."

"Gotcha. Oh, and good luck in the race!"

* * *

><p><em>Funhouse <em>by P!nk

* * *

><p>He arrived at The Black Arms relatively unscathed, happy to note that there wasn't much damage to the building itself, though he did wonder about the fairly obvious crater at the edge of the parking lot, and the bullet holes in parts of the roof. When he knocked at the door, he wasn't surprised to see Wave answering it, looking a little worn and tired.<p>

"Where have you been?"

It wasn't particularly the question itself, but the way that she said it that irked him. He didn't know why, he wasn't exactly expecting a pleasant welcome.

"Down at the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre."

"Do you _know_ how quickly this place goes to _hell _without you?" she asked, and he had to admit, it was a question he felt a mild bit of pride over.

"I don't. I've never really had to leave for that long. But… could you just explain to me what happened?" he pleaded, not really wanting to go inside and find out for himself. Wave raised a finger and went inside again; it was a really hot day, the sun beating down on them like a blanket of fire. She emerged a moment later with two perspiring soda cans, which he unconsciously licked his lips over as they sat down on the edge of the curb, for a moment, the hiss of their cans the only sound between them.

"What took you so long to get back?" she asked, and he looked over to her, noticing that when she wasn't being horrid and rude to him, she was actually really pretty. Because of the hot weather she was wearing a white band of fabric around her chest and white short-shorts with black ankle boots. He'd never realised it before, but her clothing was always kind of revealing. It kind of reminded him of a practical version of what Rogue wore everytime he saw her.

"They wouldn't let me leave. They kept saying that it was too dangerous."

"_It was_, until about two days ago when Metal called off the hunt," she explained.

"'Metal?'" he asked inquisitively, taking a sip out of his can.

"Cooper," she explained, "a few years ago I hacked into Soleanna government websites and managed to find an old file on the Soleanna Royal Guard. 'Cooper' is the name of one of the Royal Guards that instigated The Massacre, known to the rest of you," she paused, waiting for him to absorb the information, "as Metal Sonic; a codename, given to him because he was reconstructed in the image of the Blue Blur, who Eggman despises."

"Solaris…" Tails swore. His eyes scanned over the parking lot, pointing to the small crater that had been made. Wave nodded.

"My boss, Jet, has a deep grudge for Metal Sonic. It was one of the reasons that he agreed to help you in the first place; he heard 'Cooper' and flipped. When we were fighting Metal Sonic-"

Tails promptly spat out his drink, creating a stream all over the black asphalt. Wave looked at him, surprised, "Holy Hell! You did _not_ just say you were _fighting _Metal Sonic."

She cocked her head to the side, confused, "Yeah, we were and-"

"My gods, you're amazing!"

She rolled her eyes, irritated at his enthusiasm, "Would you mind, not interrupting me?"

"Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly.

"I was saying that Jet was injured, but he managed to give Metal a fair share of injuries as well. What I was asking was; why was he after _you?_"

"I don't know."

"_C'mon _Prower," she urged, and he furrowed his eyebrows angrily.

"_I. don't. know."_

She pinched the bridge of her beak in annoyance, closing her eyes and breathing out a long, deep breath. The swallow took a sip of the soda, cringing a little, "Alright. Well… I'd suppose you'd want to know what else has been happening surrounding your friends."

He nodded, but widened his eyes when the nature of her words sunk in, "Wait, you're actually going to _tell _me?"

The violet bird made an irritated huff, setting her soda can by her boots, "Unless you wanted to go in and see for yourself?"

"No. Explanation please?"

She rolled her eyes, tapping his can with the heel of her boot, prompting him to take another drink, "Alright, well, the first thing you're going to notice is that Caleb has a non-Mobian rabbit."

_Caleb? She's on first name basis with him?_

It was a petty thought, and Tails pushed it to the side to address the more obvious matters, "Why?"

"He said he's minding it for someone. He's giving it back sometime next week." She smiled slightly, looking into the distance, "I kinda like it, it's… cute."

Well… that was surprising. No, it wasn't surprising for Mobians to be dealing with non-Mobian animals; Tails saw birds called 'Flickies' all the time.

"What about Blaze?"

Wave's eyes narrowed at that, "The purple cat, right?... Yeah, she's here. Apparently she went to her father in the hospital and he gave her an earful for leaving their mother at such a crucial time. He tried to sustain her again, but she escaped and came back here. She's been sleeping on the couch, along with the raccoon, but she isn't speaking to her, or the white hedgehog. I mean, word around says that she's forgiven them, but they're still acting a little awkward towards each other."

Tails nodded, knowing he would probably receive the silent treatment as well, but he could hardly deny Blaze shelter. She had nowhere else to go and getting her out of The Manor at that time had resulted in her mother's demise. Maybe they could deal with one more visitor, but not for long.

"Is there any _good _news?"

"The black hedgehog has stopped bringing whores back here. He either takes them to a hotel or has stopped it completely, but the bottom floor smells really refreshing now," she said with flourish and a small little grin. He allowed a small chuckle at that, admittedly relieved, "Oh, and your little girlfriend is here."

Tails cocked his head to the side, pushing away his bangs, "What? I don't have a girlfriend."

Wave snickered a little, "That's not what she's saying."

The fox rolled his eyes and walked inside, still holding onto the rim of his soda can, "Thanks for explaining."

As soon as he climbed the stairs and opened the door to reach the first floor and lounge room, he was knocked to the side and felt something shoot under his tails.

"Fuck-!" Caleb grabbed the falling soda can and righted Tails up, "Apologies, Prower." He gave Tails the soda can and bent down to see the small creature no doubt hiding underneath his tails, "Come back here, you stupid excuse for a furry bowling pin!"

"That's the rabbit Wave told me about, isn't it?" he asked, calmly sipping his drink.

"I _promise_ it will be gone by next week," he said, crossing his index finger over his heart in two quick strokes, and Tails noticed that he had acquired a totally new set of hemp bracelets. He rolled his eyes and nodded, placing his soda on the banister as he went over to inspect Blaze, who was watching TV on the couch like nothing was wrong.

"Blaze…"

The purple cat regarded him calmly, folding her hands in her lap, "Tails… I'd-I'd like to request shelter here, just for a few days."

"Of course," he said, "you're always welcomed here, and I'm sorry for your loss."

She sighed and nodded solemnly, settling back into the couch. He went back to retrieve the soda can and climbed the stairs, immediately getting glomped by Sonic, Amy, Silver and Cream, who squashed his vocal box into non-existence. He felt warm and happy as his friends brought him to the kitchen table and demanded an explanation out of him, saying themselves that the Black Arms had fallen to pieces without him and that they were glad he was okay.

It was nice to be home.

* * *

><p><em>Crushcrushcrush <em>by Paramore

* * *

><p>He was up bright and early this morning, probably because he'd fallen asleep in absolute exhaustion yesterday. The cops had been on Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow and himself all night, trying to catch <em>anyone <em>really, that had been using Extreme Gear. It had been two days since he had returned to the Black Arms garage and _today_ was the qualifying races for the Soleanna Grand Prix.

In the days that he had been resting up and tuning Gear, he had returned Espio's Gear, finding out that GUN knew about as much as he did concerning Eggman's real agenda, which wasn't a very comforting thought. If anything it was downright _scary_ because he possibly knew _more _than GUN, having seen the prototypes for Eggman's own gear in the control room of The Violet Manor. He'd stood with Espio, wondering exactly how to word what he had seen without getting into trouble for breaking and entering, but in the end it was all for naught. He _couldn't _believe one of the most advanced organisations in the world couldn't get anything on Doctor Eggman's scheme. If they didn't get anything soon, Tails would be tempted to do something _himself._

The Black Arms had acquired a lively buzz thanks to the pre-race hype, and everyone was scurrying around, getting ready and making breakfast. He had already scarfed down a cup of cereal (because that's how he _rolls_), not actually taking the time to chew as he went over the final checks for his Extreme Gear. Yellow Tail two point zero was designed after the 'Un-Gravitify' Extreme Gear range, and had the ability to manipulate gravity to the rider's advantage. It was a somewhat risky move; using these kinds of Gear was a gamble as he wasn't as competent with it as he was with his regular board. These designs had just been released last year, and more people had gotten hurt _testing_ them than they had _regular _Extreme Gear accidents. Unfortunately, he had no idea how Eggman had designed the courses, so it would be better to choose something versatile and sturdier. Besides, this gear could turn into an 'Air Ride'; changing its physical structure so that it looked more like a bow, and he'd have to ride it like one would a horse. It was better for gaining air and setting up the 'gear changes', checking the fuel tank and throwing weapons.

"Prower?"

Tails was dragged out of his thoughts by Wave, who was completely ready with her gear; the fantastic Type-W, which he had been entranced by from the moment he first saw the Gear. Throughout all their time at the garage, Wave had not let him examine it, not even once. The swallow was in the outfit he had met her in, the feathery-white band around her torso, the white pants with the purple flame designs and her most worn out red sneakers. She had just finished tying a bandana around her head to keep her bangs out of her eyes and was now fiddling with the arms of her glasses.

"Yeah?"

"We're heading out now," her voice was a little reluctant, her tone quieter and gentler than before.

The fox paused, pulling his goggles over his head so that they hung around his chest like a necklace, "Wave, is something wrong?"

She snapped back instantly, the three second window of vulnerability now gone, "No. Shove off and focus on your race."

"Well… thanks." He replied sarcastically, his lips turning down in a frown as he towed his gear out.

"Good luck," she spat, "you'll need it."

Tails was the last to leave The Black Arms behind all of his other friends, leaving at different times so that they would all be able to divert the cops instead of making targets for themselves. It was possible that Egg Pawns would be lenient right now, since today the Extreme Gear was going to be used anyway, but it was always good to be careful.

He had just crossed Lethal Highway, losing sight of the end of Wave's board tail when he was slammed into the side of the road by an unknown force. He only had seconds to register the offenders, his goggles cracked and his body shaken. He only saw black silhouettes disappear around the corner, with the brief mutter of 'freak' and 'show-off'. The young fox had fallen off his board with the impact, so he regained his footing and dusted off his jeans, picking up his Extreme Gear and rattling it around a little. Nothing seemed out of place, just a little shaken like him, so he set it upright and continued on his way to the Extreme Gear stadium.

Extreme Gear had not always been banned in Soleanna. Up until he was ten years old, Extreme Gear was completely legal, for everyone over sixteen years that is. Coincidence? Definitely not. Extreme Gear had been banned very soon after The Crimson Night, and it made Tails wonder _how_ the two events were related at all. A _lot _of things happened around The Crimson Night that didn't make any sense, but he would ponder about that later. If he didn't reach the race in time to sign himself in he wouldn't be able to participate. He floored it after that.

The Egg Dome was where the qualifiers were being held, Tails knew that as of six months ago it had been a giant crater that The Government of Soleanna didn't know what to do with, and then Eggman had randomly started construction on it. He'd been in there only once, for a school field trip, and until they'd turned on the lights, it had been like walking in a planetarium. He absolutely _hated _to admit that he'd _liked _what Eggman had made of it, especially since it had come from something useless rather than something special like a _cemetery._ The inside had been specifically made to create simulations for all the people inside the arena, and let the bystanders observe from the stands.

People were reluctant to let him through the crowd, and it wasn't just because they wanted to get into the stadium either. Twice on his way to admittance he had been shoved to the floor, and twice he had to check to make sure that his gear was alright. It still seemed okay, so he shoved forward until he was at the guard letting the participants in.

"Miles Prower." He panted the name out, exhausted already, which was a really bad sign as it was.

The guard was a hulking ape, one that seemed mildly familiar, and he let the little fox in begrudgingly with a hint of a smirk on his lips. It worried the fox who was unsure how events would play out as they were; the added thought of foul play really got his heart racing. He couldn't see any of his friends around, glancing at make-shift gear stations where contestants were making their final preparations. There were also a large amount of players crowding around a monitor in the corner of the makeshift garage next to eight chute-like elevators.

He walked over to them first, confirming his suspicions that the monitor was indeed important. There were eight columns of names with specific times and numbers right next to them, and Tails took a moment to figure out the organisation before trying to locate his line. He was in the next horizontal line, in accordance to chute number seven in… ten minutes.

They'd just called out 'Racers for 76' which still sounded very foreign to him. Until he noticed that at the edge of his vertical row, was the number '75'.

Shit.

_Ten. Minutes._

Tails would have started to hyperventilate right then if he hadn't been trying to be level headed and normal about the situation. He had to hop and rise on his toes continuously to see who else was in his line, his eyes almost bulged out of his head when he saw Storm's name in column two. Apart from Storm he could not see anyone else that he remembered by name, and just looking at their different names had cost him seven minutes. If he checked right now then he could have a quick look at his gear and-

"Racers for 75!"

"Aw, man!" he growled darting in between racers way taller than him and slipping his goggles over his eyes. On the way to his chute-ivator he was tripped up _again_ and greeted with a wave of raucous laughter. He released a vicious, angry snarl and stepped inside the elevator using the time spent inside the ascending chute to shake his gear again, eyes widening when he heard a rattle that _definitely _didn't belong in there, but he couldn't even open the panel without a screw driver, so he was stuck at a loss as to what it was.

He hoped to Solaris that it wasn't anything important.

The fox and the other candidates rose onto the platform slowly, and Tails immediately spent whatever time he had observing the environment. Tails was incredibly surprised to find that the scenery had been modelled (or simulated) to look like Megalo Station. The starting line, around fifty kilometres away, was the centre of a colosseum with the audience on either side, cheering the racers that would be beginning their race soon. It occurred to Tails that any of his friends that raced after him wouldn't know what had happened until their races were over.

Wincing under the strobe lights, the audience 'oohed' and 'ahhed' as the planetarium ceiling became lighter and lighter, until it resembled the Megalo Station sky at sunset. Tails was sweating, incredibly nervous as to what could happen right now. Everyone around him, including Storm, looked intimidating and twice his size in comparison. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe he should drop out. Quack was right, maybe he wasn't suited for-

"Hello ladies and gentlemen!" he scowled at the voice; Adam Mecha. Everyone's favourite news announcer seemed to be the first one broadcasting this historic event. Although Tails was sure it was meant to be an Underground thing at first, it seemed that it would be among the news of The Royal Court immediately, "Adam Mecha here, comin' to you live from The Egg Dome to catch everything carnage on The Soleanna Grand Prix, and race 75 is proving to be an _interesting _one."

Tails had to remember that the races were moving in descending order, and if he recalled correctly, there were around six hundred and forty contestants. He needed to find out how the process of elimination worked.

"Remember that only first, second and third place receive a spot in the next round."

Six hundred and forty divided by eight equals eighty races in total. Take away three winners from each race and you have two hundred and forty racers. He needed to be one of those two hundred and forty.

"Well, well," Adam's voice filtered over the public announcement system like that little voice in your head that wouldn't leave you alone, "It looks like we have some fascinating players this time round. Look here! We have one of the Babylon Rogues; Storm the albatross!"

The crowd released a wave of cheers that was quickly drowned out by Adam's next statement, "And is that… Is that _Miles Prower?_ The _youngest_ competitor in the competition? What a surprise, havin' the little tyke in the _fifth _race." There was a different reaction to him, a mix of weaker cheers among a bigger cacophony of 'boos'. Tails hardened himself against their jeers, focusing instead on observing the track, taking note of their ramps, where the speed ups were, where the visible power ups were, and he caught site of a maintenance robot in the distance, flying through some aerial ring accelerators to drag away…

Tails almost gagged.

It was a dead body.

It looked like this was going to be a lot tougher than he thought.

Tails shook his gear again, trying to identify what was wrong with his board. It didn't sound like a part was out place… it sounded kind of like something was _emptying._ His eyes widened when he heard it. A small tiny little hiss was breaking out between the loosened panels of his board, and Tails was absolutely horrified when he realised it was the air tank.

"Racers! In positions!"

The starting line came alive as it lit up in neon, the electricity barring anyone from passing shooting sparks of bright blue and the light indicating the meters from the starting line at their sides while a laser-beam of light started rushing up at them from behind, moving in a horizontal fashion as if to sweep them of their feet. Tails released a deep calm breath and started backing up, much like he saw Storm doing. The rest of the riders joined them, following their lead when Storm broke his walking-backwards fashion and the clear laser of light passed their feet. As soon as it did Tails snapped his neck towards the dangerous line of voltage, apart from himself and Storm, everyone seemed incredibly hesitant about running head-long into possibly fatal electricity.

Despite knowing what to do, Tails was still more hesitant than Storm and proceeded to keep at least a meter behind the big bird. He still managed to gain an advantage, as three seconds before the laser beam hit the wall of electricity, the barrier was removed and he threw down his gear, jumping onto it as he hit the thrusters.

"And we're off! And it looks like Storm and Miles remain the two leading competitors, what a turn out! Remember racers, there are only two rules; don't exceed the boundaries and you can't be off your board for more than two minutes!"

Tails looked behind him to see the other competitors lagging behind; their hesitance with the electricity barrier had been their downfall. He smirked, turning ahead and getting himself ready for a huge jump. He was thrown for a loop when he noticed there were in-built spring boards at the edge of the jump. He didn't know this was meant to be a trick race!

While Storm performed a series of graceful, tactful aerial acrobatics, he was left spinning due to the added movement at the tail end of his board. He worked on righting himself before he hit the ground, just managing to come out of a possible face-plant. He'd try to remember that the next time he encountered the edge of a jump. Unfortunately, his clumsiness had lost him second place, and he was now striving for fifth place.

Grabbing the end of his board he twisted around a corner and watched the other racers speed ahead of him. He managed to catch all of the accelerators, catching fourth place as he narrowly avoided punches from the surrounding racers. Just as he was about to switch around the final corner before they could reach the second lap, another racer rammed him into a crash barrier.

He yelped and fell off his board, slamming his shoulder into the ground. He ignored the pain and scrambled for his Extreme Gear, jumping on it again and noticing that his board was sputtering and loosing air twice as fast as usual. He swore under his breath as he watched the sixth and seventh place fly by soundlessly.

Was it planned?

It didn't matter.

He was going to lose.


	13. Silent Murder

**domi|note **It's kind of daunting, being ahead by a chapter. I _swear _I'm trying to slow the story down, well, action and all that is still there, but the story behind it should be moving at a slower pace.

**Alert! **Oh, by the way, there is a visual teaser on my DeviantART account of a snapshot for Caleb's past. If you're curious you should have a little look (link's on my profile.)

**Miss-Monochrome** asked how one would envision Caleb's vocal tone. (you're a weird one, aren't you?) He sounds like Rollo Weeks.

**WARNING; **INTENSE VIOLENCE and swearing. The last scene of this chapter kind of made me cry, so **Kobiee **had to take over. It was one of those scenes that just _had_ to be written, I thought about other options, but none of them cut it. It's a very dark.

Thanks to **Exploder**, **Angel-of-Energy**, **Ficfan412**, **JoshuathePikachu**, **The Guy in the Background**, **superechidna**, **HalfWright**,**LordCooler**, **Kobiee**, **little-miss-monochrome** and **SmallSpek** for reviewing the last chapter. And to the wonderful **Pixelated Firefly **for beta-ing.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another? ~Alan Paton<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirteen  
>.<em>  
>"It's a silent murder. It's a grave that sings your song. It's a quiet failure. It's the one that makes you strong."<br>…_  
>Till The World Ends (Cover) <em>by Through Arteries

* * *

><p>His thoughts were moving at lightning speed, going through configurations and calculations in a desperate bid to come up with a solution to his predicament. Storm would now be halfway through the second lap if he was in first place, which meant that he had around fifteen minutes before the race ended. It would be about thirteen minutes before he lost the chance at third place. He needed to come up with something incredibly fast if he was going to come out a winner in all this.<p>

He'd already decided on a plan, but this was going to take a lot of action and possibly the reconstruction of his board altogether. There was a _leak _in his air supply, but if he managed to control the way the air was pumping then he would still be able to accelerate instead of losing it from all angles. He couldn't be off his board for more than two minutes, so he would need to time this well.

He needed to get at the air chamber and open up the leak so he could blast wind through the turbines and create an electricity compensation for the air he was losing. That way he would gain the control on the panel he would need for the violent air rushes pumping through the vehicle… if this worked that is. It was _all _that he had. And he'd found that so-crazy-they-just-might-work plans had been successful before. He had nothing to lose.

"What's this folks? It looks like Prower is slowing down? Is it a board malfunction or is he losing spirit?"

He wanted to kick that news announcer where the sun didn't shine, but he used the time instead to set his digital alarm on his wrist-watch for two minutes. In that time he slowly crossed the finish line and made it a few hundred kilometres before slowing to a complete stop and jumping off the board. This brought on a series of surprised noises from the crowds in the stands, who started an instant countdown that could be seen in the sky as if it was the Bat Signal itself. It was the time he had left to get on the board.

"What a way to leap off a board; looks like we've got a little fox-trotter with us!"

Tails cringed at the bad joke and muttered a quick 'Sorry' to his board before turning it around and _smashing _it into the nearest wall. The audience continued to make confused noises at what the young kit was doing, and the floating cameras zoned in on him, all the while counting down the time he had left until he was disqualified. One of the panels fell off and using one of the solar modules he had installed a few weeks ago, he used the pointed end of one to open the very obvious leak in his fuel tank, adjusting it so that it would face the edge of his puffer jets.

While he was working on this he saw Storm pass by, still in first place with a worried look on his face. When he looked back to meet the albatross's eyes, he also caught the jeers of some of the competitors behind the Babylon rider, one of them even pushing down one of the poor maintenance robots that had just made it through the aerial rings.

Tails snarled and looked up noticing that he only had thirty seconds left.

"And it looks like Prower is trying to fix his board. He may work for the Black Arms but will his expertise stop him from losing this race?"

He managed to get back on his board just in time, unleashing a wave of disappointed growls and angry calls. He raced forward until he reached the first jump again and almost yelled when stomping his foot down on the nose of the board. It was an amazing feeling! He'd managed to propel himself _twice _as high as he had been before, maybe even several hundred meters, because of the added air pressure from the leaking tank. He'd almost hit one of the robot's accelerator rings in the process. He performed two graceful spins before landing on a cushion of air. Because of the added fuel from a successful trick his air tank was now full and would soon deplete if he didn't put it to good use, so he hit the thrusters and almost fell off his board from the speed.

"Look at that! It looks like Prower could have a chance at catching up after all! Within a few seconds he'll be able to overlap everyone else, _if _he can control his board."

That was right; he was having extreme difficulty controlling himself while moving at this speed. He'd have to make sure he was ready to turn at any second, but over the Megalo scenery he was delighted when he saw the other seven competitors fall behind him with total ease. They were already on their third lap, and he was still working on his second. It was a worrying thought.

The added speed managed to carry him through his second lap and three quarters of the third, and then suddenly… it stopped. The velocity suddenly gave up on him and he slowed down. His air tank was running out, and it was probably burned too.

"Oh my. It looks like our fox's brief little victory chase has given up, only a few hundred meters before the finish line too!"

Tails snarled in frustration, he could _see _the finish line, but his board didn't have enough air to keep moving. He just needed to cross_one_ more gap before he could reach the finish line in first place, but it seemed Karma was still out to get him.

Just when he had given up all hope, he heard a call in the distance and turned around. Storm was fast approaching, along with all the other competitors a few hundred meters beyond him. He only yelled out one statement, but it clicked in Tails mind instantly.

"Spring board!"

That's right! His board had stopped on a spring board, and if he could just-

Tails looked up and noticed something; the robot's aerial ring accelerators passed right through the finish line. Wait a second. No he didn't have a second. Was that even-? No! He didn't have enough time to ponder; the other players were going to pass him if he didn't do it now!

Tails slammed his foot down on the nose of his Gear and sent him flying into the air due to the force he'd placed on the spring board and the last remaining burst of air pressure rocketed him up until he was nine _hundred _meters in the air.

"Just _look_ at that! Fox-trot has been sent flying through the stratosphere due to his gear malfunction! It's obvious here that he won't make it back down in time to reach the goal."

That's where Adam Mecha was wrong.

Gravity brought him back down with the nose of his gear almost at a one-eighty degree angle, pointing right into the middle of the maintenance robot's ring accelerators. In his peripheral vision he could see everyone had crossed the last gap now, and if he didn't reach the end he would be in last place. That's when he passed through the accelerator ring.

It was _incredible!_ There was nothing to describe this feeling but pure adrenaline and the sure-fire shot that he was going to _win!_Over and over again he was shocked with the force that the acceleration rings brought on him. This was always what it was like whenever Sonic would give him piggy-back rides through Soleanna, like the world was a blur and you were some mysterious entity zooming through it at the speed of sound.

He was brought to the ground, letting out a solid 'oomph' noise as he saw Storm passing the finish line and before he could even contemplate it, so was he.

"Storm of Babylon; first place! Miles Prower of Black Arms; second place! What a _surprising_ outcome."

He…

He did it.

_He'd done it!_

The fox almost didn't process the information fast enough before he fell of his board and whooped in happiness. The crowd, having seen an extraordinary change from underdog to competitor cheered along with him, because it had probably been a _fantastic show._He couldn't wait to re-watch it.

Unfortunately, not everyone was as thrilled with his surprise performance. He had to stop himself from flinching when one of the racers came up to him and shoved him hard in the shoulder, "Hey! You stupid little twat! That was _cheating!_"

Tails had to gulp when he came into contact with the large looking Mobian cheetah. Judging by how angry he looked, he probably hadn't come in third.

"No,it wasn't…" he replied in a tone that was defiant, but also a little timid at the same time as his voice trailed off in the end. Everyone seemed to support the cheetah, ready to take any excuse to kick this kid out of the competition. Tails felt so pressured and so hated at the moment that he was almost willing to submit to their demands when a loud, slightly unfamiliar voice filtered over the speakers of The Egg Dome.

**"**_**Enough."**_

At first he thought the voice had belonged to Adam Mecha, but upon analysing tone he realised it as…

It was Eggman.

For the love of Solaris! Nobody had heard Eggman's voice in four years! And now, everyone inside the stadium was hearing it with their own ears. This was truly a monumental feat.

**"The young fox kit has **_**not**_** exceeded the boundaries of the track, and thus, has not broken the rules."** There was an added note of amusement in the next sentence, **"Actually, such innovation should be rewarded. For clever thinking when your board has **_**obviously**_** been rendered unusable **_**before**_** the race, you, Miles Prower, will be awarded six hundred extra rings, on top of the two hundred for coming in second place. That is all."**

The words rang in his head long after the crowd had died down from either their cries of joy or their cries of outrage. Even when Storm steered him away from the race track and into the winner's after-party the singular thought still wouldn't stop knocking up against the side of his head.

_The man who I'm trying to extract revenge upon just saved me._

* * *

><p><em>Hallelujah <em>by Paramore

* * *

><p>"CHEERS!"<p>

"Yeah!~ Go Fox-Trot!"

"Stop calling me that!"

The Black Arms was in a celebratory mood. Everyone that participated had come in either first or second place (definitely due to their top-notch gear). Jet had been racing with Knuckles and they'd gained first and second place respectably. Wave, Shadow and Sonic had come first in all their races and now Black Arms had become a force to be reckoned with. This was a thought that was as terrifying as it was good. They were now all sitting around the sofa eating Chinese take-out except Caleb, Silver and Cream which who were helping the fox to catch the black and white rabbit that was still running about. Tails had never realised how intricate the design of The Black Arms was until this small creature had taken advantage of it.

"Heartnet," said Tails, "What's its name?"

Caleb paused in his hilarious pursuit of the rabbit to tap his chin in thought. Tails rolled his eyes, about to dismiss the comment when he spoke up, "_His_ name is Fritlavious Gravis Curva Auritus Cuniculus." Tails pondered this information as Caleb moved over to one of the bean bags; his rabbit was hiding on the other side. He dived for it, missing it by inches.

"Shit!"

"Why are you taking care of it?" Sonic questioned with a bit of lettuce sticking out his mouth. Sonic never really mastered the art of chewing with his mouth closed. You'd think he would, considering where he grew up and all.

"Because the owner doesn't have anyone _else _they can trust him with," he said, looking around for it again.

"Trusting him to _you_ wasn't exactly the smartest idea on his part," Jet laughed at another failed attempt to catch the horrendous little creature by Silver. Why was Silver even helping Caleb in the first place? Blackmail? Why didn't he bother using telekinesis?

Yes, it was sad that was Tails' first assumption.

"_She_ said the same thing, especially since this rabbit hates me," he commented, making another dive and giving up. The black and white rabbit ran right into Cream's arms. Tails chuckled quietly when he saw Caleb run his hand through his hair in frustration.

"What's wrong Heartnet?" Silver jeered."Never told me you were afraid of girls."

Caleb narrowed his eyes and kicked the back of Silver's knees, making him slam into the side of the couch, the side that Blaze had been sitting on. There was a moment of awkward silence before Blaze turned away and continued to eat. Silver growled and sent the nastiest glare Tails had ever seen at the brown fox, "Being afraid of girls, of whom I am _not_, is a completely different thing to being afraid of ones sister."

Wave almost spat out her drink, "You have a _sister?_"

The brown fox made a little sound of mock fear, "Leave me alone! I wanted a cat. Non-Mobian cats are quiet and take care of themselves." He made a death glare at the rabbit who seemed content in Cream's arms, "Unlike _you!_"

"I can't believe you just said you'd prefer a cat over your sister," Silver said.

"She's one of those 'I'll be cute and adorable until me and my brother are alone' type of girls."

Cream giggled and handed Caleb back the rabbit, "Thanks Creampuff." Caleb turned away and hoisted the rabbit into the air for any injuries. Tails noticed something odd about her then, crossing her hands in front of her and blushing as she stared at Caleb's back. Tails rolled his eyes, scowling a little; it was like girls would fall for the first guys that gave them nicknames. An uncomfortable feeling tugged at his heartstrings, one he didn't think he liked remembering, and he decided to change the subject.

"Does that mean _she _named it?"

"Aye. Since I didn't want him in the first place, I was pretty adamant on calling him 'Bunny' because I couldn't remember the name. Fritlavious Gravis Curva Auritus Cuniculus is quite a mouthful, ain't it?"

"What do you call it now?" Cream asked him, fluttering her large brown eyes.

"Fritty."

The rabbit twitched its head against Caleb's chest, and then tried to make a desperate bid to run away, scrambling out of his arms. The fox just stared at the fleeing creature a little bit; he then looked down to his hands, "Fucking thing scratched me." He made his way into the bathroom, a worried look passing over his features. When he was back he asked Silver if he could fetch the rabbit, but Silver was still pissed off at him for what he had done with Blaze.

Cream offered to help again and a few minutes later he was growling again, "Sodding Solaris, you're almost as bad as the owner!"

Tails was brought out of that conversation when Knuckles clapped him on the back. He almost choked on the bit of noodle in his mouth with the force, his eyes bulging out as he reached for the water on the coffee table, "I still couldn't believe you did that! I would have never thought of something like using the accelerator rings."

"That's because you don't think at _all!_" Jet declared, gaining a round of laughs from everyone else. The red echidna glared at the hawk, but Tails had no doubt if he wasn't standing on the other end of this huge crowd of people, he would have jumped the hawk and ripped out his tail feathers.

"That was amazing!" Amy said.

"Yeah," Sonic agreed, reaching around and slinging his shoulder over Tails, "now don't get me wrong buddy, I knew you would pull through, but the general populace thought you were definitely going to lose."

Shadow made a 'humph' sound from his vantage point on the floor, by far the best view of the television where they were replaying the Qualifiers on the sports news, "Stop lying, Faker, _you _were the one wailing like a child saying he was going to lose."

Sonic flushed angrily and made a show of stabbing Shadow's arm with a chop stick. Shadow was quicker though, and grabbed it before he could land, snapping it in half, "Hey! How am I going to eat with _one_ chop stick?"

"Be creative," was Shadow's blasé response, something that made the rest of the table break out into laughs, something Shadow was obviously unused to. He was only here because the food was, and he couldn't take it back to his room without coming back.

"Was there a reason why your board was on the fritz in the first place?" Cream asked, pausing in her efforts to find the rabbit."Wouldn't they have given you time to fix it?"

Tails shook his head, recalling the gang of thugs that had smashed him into the wall a little bit after leaving Lethal Highway, "You'd think so, but no."

"You should have seen the look on Wave's face," Jet laughed, "when she saw what you were doing to your board." Wave snarled at him and hit him over the head, sending him to the floor. Tails grinned. Jet had been in a weird kind of funk for the last few days, it had taken him a while to finally get back to normal. But it seemed like he came back with enough obnoxiousness to make up for his absence. Wave was the same, which wasn't that much of a relief because-

"Yes! That's right! I _can't believe_ you would do that to your board!" the swallow, flushed and angry, stood up.

"I…" Tails paused sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, "I didn't know what to do…"

"Well, you obviously didn't think fast enough! If you'd _had _any bit of common sense, you'd have been able to pull back the top layer of the thruster innards so that the compressed air would have a harder time of getting out. Then you wouldn't have to completely_destroy_ the inside."

Tails blushed, embarrassed. She was correct, "She's right."

"Wave, stop being mean," Storm said quietly, but his request was met with a vicious snarl and Wave stormed down the stairs. It looked like she was still hesitant about the situation before her, and all the more ready to make Tails feel like absolute shit because of it.

The fox slowly put his dinner back onto the table and it was surprisingly Shadow that changed the tune of the atmosphere, "Prower, your re-run's on."

Just then, the doorbell rang and he shook his head, decided that he didn't want to see after all. He hopped over the edge of the couch and went down the stairs to answer the garage door, once opened; he was stormed with a barrage of news reporters.

Did he really have the will power to do all this nonsense?

His thoughts flashed to the burning cemetery. And then the feeling he got when he was nine hundred meters in the air. The anger towards the man that had killed his mother, the robot that had murdered his father.

He'd fight for those emotions, of anger and sorrow, of freedom and happiness, no matter how hard.

Nosy reporters, critics and bullies were _nothing._

* * *

><p><em>Message To The World <em>by Story Of The Year

* * *

><p>The morning passed by in a phase. Tails moved through his tasks like an absent ghost, flittering through his emotions as he tried to evaluate what he was going to do now, the way in which he did things automatically and kept his fervent thoughts to himself while he worked away silently.<p>

Maybe that was the first of his first mistake.

The reporters crowded around him like the Summer heat, eager to make him uncomfortable, making him physically ill. He had trouble distinguishing reporters from customers, and reporters disguised as customers. Nearly everyone was out, and he needed some fresh air, it was easy sneaking out the back of The Black Arms and heading nearer to Soleanna Forest to take a breather. Unfortunately, heading out, by himself had been his second mistake.

He just needed to cross a few more streets before he would be able to reach The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre, bypass that and head into the forest for a few hours of peace. But getting caught proved too disastrous indeed, for as soon as Tails was spotted, he was slugged and shoved into an alleyway. Being careless and stupid in his hiding had landed him in a gang fight. He should have been looking out for it really, it wasn't like everyone approved of him. There were just _so _many reasons to hate him now.

"_You're_ the stupid fucker that electrocuted my dad, didn't you?"

Tails was still reeling from the force of the blow across his cheek. When he looked up all he saw was a hazy blur of black and flesh, one prominent blob became obvious later on. He was pinned up against the scratchy surface of the alley wall and his air supply was rapidly running out. His survival instincts were kicking in now, far too late. His vision focused and what he could see now, were a mix of Mobians and humans all looking at him like he had just drowned their kittens. He recognised the bully now; it was the guy that had shoved a bag over his head on the last day of school. The guy that starts with M or D. It would be a good time to remember his name right now.

When the boy didn't receive an answer he kneed Tails in the gut, which would have caused him to crumple into a pathetic heap if his arms weren't being held up by his cronies.

His.

_MarDean Orbot._

Ah. The only reason that Orbot had linked him to what happened to his dad at The Violet Manor was because he was friends with Silver, and Silver had been mentioned in the news.

The memories clicked into place, and Tails could feel the anger welling up inside of him, but he visibly looked like he was deflating, his stomach was on fire and he had felt sluggish and tired to begin with. His movements betrayed his languid state of mind, making him more of a target. He mumbled something quietly, unsure whether he wanted his persecutors to hear.

"What was that Prower? Afraid because your pansy-ass friends aren't with you? No telekinetic friend to back you up?"

Yes. Actually. He was _very _afraid.

"Your father killed my mom."

"What?"

The anger that had been growing and lapping at the inside of his body flared then. It wasn't only at this boy's insolence, but at their stupid conceited way of viewing mutants, thinking for one second that they had the _gall_ to _judge_ him when they had _absolutely. No. Right._ He was _sick_ of people like MarDean, like his father, like _Eggman_ that believed they had the right to judge a person's worth, whether the same people were worthy to walk the streets as those that hadn't been infected with the mutant gene. It made him furious.

Tails clenched his fists, which violently began to shake against the hold of MarDean's cronies. The increased their restraint, but seemed to fall back at the way that his blue eyes glowed.

"I said your father _killed_ my mother, who wasn't even a mutant!"

"She deserved to die, if all she managed to do with her life was create you."

He released a sound that was a mix between pain and rage. His resent was boiling over until it was all he saw, there was no burn in his body when his soul, his pride had been shred into tiny little pieces. These people would _pay._

"Well then by default, I should have the right to kill you? Isn't that what you're saying?" he yelled, receiving a blow to the face again, his head slamming into the wall behind him. He felt something trickle down his neck, but he was so stuck in his wrath that he couldn't feel the pain anymore, "I may have electrocuted your father out of self-defense," another blow, this time, it crushed someone's weight against his recently dislocated arm, "b-but," he gagged, "do you know why Tails Doll came along and killed him?" someone kicked his tails into the wall, crushing the bone with a crash that was still numbed by the anger, it didn't stop Tails from biting down on his lip so hard it bled, "It's because HE _DESERVED _TO DIE!"

He was thrown to the ground, pinned down by a foot at the base of his spine while three pairs of feet simultaneously kicked him, smashing something else that was no doubt important.

"Stupid cunt. I should kill you right now. Mutants deserve to die because they're unnatural, immoral, and you've killed so many of us regular Mobians and humans. Your very nature is grotesque."

Tails spat out blood and hoisted himself onto the elbow that didn't hurt as much this time, "Yeah, well," his voice was scratchy and sore and he looked up to the looming figure of MarDean, "what higher power gave you, gave people like Eggman, the right to _judge_anyone else? I can't hear the voice of Solaris or Argus speakin' through you, so you should keep your deranged depravity to yourself."

"Dumb _fucker,_" he accentuated this statement by stepping on Tails' hand, crushing so hard that he dislocated his wrist. Tails eyes widened, and he sucked in a breath before he released a high pitched scream. He couldn't believe no one was around to see this. Or maybe… maybe no one cared, "Eggman's creating a new world order, one where mutants no longer exist, and we're just helping him along with the process."

Tails actually laughed, despite the pain burning through his limbs and searing his soul, he _laughed, _"So you believe _Eggman_ is the God now? Fuckers don't _get_ sicker than you."

It was thrumming through his body now, the pain, the hurt, and now he was bordering on the edge of unconsciousness. Kicks smashed his ribs while he lay there on the ground, tears and snot mixed with the blood all over his fur. Someone pulled him up by the fur on the back of his neck and they trust their fist into his body like a brought out a knife from somewhere behind him, starting to get Tails to really panic. This time, his scream caught in his throat as MarDean drew a smooth clean line rimming the bottom of his right eye, and then another, quicker slash across his left eye.

"YOU DON'T _DESERVE _IT! You don't _deserve_ to choose. You don't _deserve _to spout your fucking mutant-infected thoughts. You don't_deserve _to win The Grand Prix, Solaris knows why Eggman's allowing you to participate. We should have killed you _before_ the race, when we damaged your fucking board."

The pain was immense, and he couldn't see anything through the blood clouding his vision now. He should have been outraged that the culprits had revealed themselves, but he just _couldn't _right now. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt someone hoist him up only to slam him into the closest wall, leaving a puddle of the kit's blood in the corner as it splattered down the wall. As their grand finale, MarDean moved closer to Tails and gently brought out his arm from under his crippled body, only to _slam_ down on it hard with his foot, twisting it so that the bone broke with a sickening crack. He would have screamed again, but someone pressed down on his throat preventing him from breathing.

They stood towering over him, congratulating each other on a job well done, "Hey Prower, maybe your precious Tails Doll will put you out of your misery, eh?"

_When you kill me, do it slowly,  
>Send a message to the world.<br>When you kill me, please do it slowly,  
>Send a message to the world.<em>

He lay there for a few seconds, brief images of his parents flashing through his mind, and all the regrets he had ever had in his life before he heard a call in the distance.

_Another war will rise, will we open the door?  
>Listen to the words it seems like,<br>Everyone has a cause fighting for a world we think we own.  
>But do we know?<em>

Familiar voices he had never been so grateful to hear, those of Caleb and Welshscot, Silver, Blaze and Marine as they found his probably-already-dead body. It didn't matter. He was already losing the will to live anyway. How easier would it be? A life without Miles 'Tails' Prower?

_We've got so far to go from here,  
>And we've got so much to lose.<br>With innocent eyes, yeah!  
>And curious hearts, we've got so much to learn,<br>So we find (we find!)_

Maybe Eggman had won after all. If he could instil this power inside his followers, how were people like him _ever_ going to win? Maybe they _were _doomed? How could a _stupid, worthless _little fox like him ever think differently?

_When you kill me, do it slowly,  
>When we've come undone.<br>When you kill me, please do it slowly,  
>Send a message to the world (A message to the world).<br>Send a message to the world._

He lay there;

Crippled.

Scared.

_Broken._

…

…

And as he slipped into an abyss of darkness away from the pain of his fragmented body, one sentence lingered at the edge, latching itself onto the falling bits of consciousness his body strived to hold onto.

_"Can you feel the sunshine?"_


	14. Unsaid and Done

**domi|note **I'll be switching perspectives a lot in the next few chapters. Can't spend all that time in the recovery section, aye? Someone might get bored (namely; me).

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **The Guy in the Background**, **LordCooler**, **superechidna**, **Exploder**, **Angel-of-Energy** and **WelshScot** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Every evil is some good spelt backwards, and in it the wise know how to read wisdom. ~Coventry Patmore<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fourteen  
>.<em>  
>"What you left behind is greater (than photo that's pinned down). The memory fell, through times spent with us all; still a million things unsaid and done."<br>…_  
>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p><em>Two days ago<em>

It was all _his_ fault. First the Manor, and now this. He swore to be forever in his guard. But as he watched the boy bring his foot upon the fox's arm, from the single window above the alleyway, the Tails Doll felt ashamed to be called a guardian. Two days he had hidden in this abandoned apartment, coming out only to watch Miles's race. He had been so proud of how he had managed to win, despite the odds and the hatred that came pouring in from the Anti-Mutant bastards, but he had still kept away; returning his mind to the task ahead five minutes after Milles had came second. And because of his lack of attention, of his duty to the Mutants and Miles, the fox was now bleeding and broken at the hands of the people the Tails Doll had sworn to destroy. But self pity was swiftly replaced with rage, the same rage that he had used to kill the Duchess, the uncontrolled rage that had broken his standards and the Duke's ability to walk. But now he can, he will, control his anger; and unleash revenge with no mercy...

MarDean and his mixed group of Non-Mutant Mobians and Humans, making a total of six, were congratulating the other; while Tails was left bruised, cut and dying on the alleyway floor. One of the attackers, a grey, pointy toothed rat, sneered down at the dying fox and taunted, "Hey, Prower, maybe your precious Tails Doll will put you out of your misery, eh?" He turned to the human next to him and was about to say something...when he realised that his neighbour was gone.

MarDean and the others soon caught on. They looked around, wondering where their companion had gone; they wanted to leave since it was starting to rain and leave this mutant to drown in the rain and his foul, tainted blood. Orbot began to scowl, as a practically large drop or rain landed on his nose; covering his nose in red—wait, _RED?_

Fear now crawling into his skin, MarDean looked up; just as their friend's head landed at their feet. Screaming like girls, they leapt back; scrambling away from their friend's beheaded head, blood oozing out of the stump of the neck.

MarDean, now sweating profusely, was given no time to recover from the shock; as the blonde boy on his left suddenly jerked. The whole group turned their eyes, just in time to see the blonde's feet disappear round the corner of the alley's exit; his screams only last for one, horrifying moment before silence returned.

Now reduced to four, the gang of punks slowly coward away from the entrance their friend had vanished around; his fate unknown, and uncared as each of the remaining bullies feared for their own lives. MarDean, his victory now turning sour, was the slowest to back away. He knew who it was; who else would come to the aid of this, or any, pathetic Mutant. He wanted revenge, but like any snake whose bitten more than he can chew, he does little care for the death of his flesh and blood; now wanting to preserve his own from this nightmare.

As the last human began to regain sense to turn and run, a voice emitted from behind him; a chilling, haunting voice that was laced with deadly rage. _"Can you feel the sunshine?"_

The boy turned, the top of his head barely levelled with the chest of the masked, trench coated man; whose fake, plastic eyes withheld the full power of his avenging fury. Before the boy could even scream, the Tails Doll grabbed his nose and pulled to the left, then the right and then finally pushed forwards; causing the fractured nose to bury deep inside the boy's brain. He let the boy fall backwards, allowing the bloody hole where his nose had once been to gush streams of blood and whatever fluid that came from his punctured brain.

MarDean soon showed his true colours. Screaming shrilly, he tried to turn tail and run but he tripped up on his own, pathetic feet; landing face first in the blood that he had spilt. The knife he had used on Tails slid out of his pocket on impact and skidded out of arm's reach.

The last two, the Mobian rat and a pink, podgy pig, just stood there; their terror of the masked man rooting them to the spot. Finally, the rat made a move, which was both brave yet stupid. Fist raised, he ran at the trench coated man, yelling franticly of the top of his lungs; only to be swotted aside with a lazy wave of the Tails Doll's arm. The rat's head received the blow, which made it harder to say if his neck was broken by that or when he collided head long into the alleyway.

The pig, in an act of desperation, threw his trotter like hand at TD just like his fellow had done; but for more painful results. Sidestepping it easily, a knife covered from hilt to point in blood appeared from his sleeve and into the man's right hand. With swift and deadly accuracy, he swung the knife and pinned the pig's trotter to the alleyway wall. Squealing in pain, the pig fell to his knees; his arm holding his body in place thanks to his impaled trotter. TD straightened out his other arm, causing a stay beam of sunlight to catch the edge of an axe that was now in the killer's left hand. Again with graceful speed and aim, TD brought the axe upon the pig's caught arm. Releasing one final squeal of hellish pain and terror, the Mobian Pig slumped to the floor; killed by the pure shock he had received that managed to freeze his heart in an instant.

Blood, both of MarDean's victim and the ones of TD's prey, ran across the ground of the alleyway; though thankfully none of the new blood managed to get soaked into Tails already mangled fur. TD approached the cowardly boy, who was just getting back on his fleet; having already slipped on his friend's blood. His arm was flailing, trying to grab the wall to pull himself up. But instead of wall, a gloved hand wrapped around his hand's thumb, and pulled. MarDean screams was so high pitched that the blood that rushed from the place where his thumb had been, was vibrating in the air.

The boy's thumb in hand, TD was about to continue his assault, which had barely started, when something grabbed him from behind.

Turning round, TD was surprised to see that it was the rat boy; his head lolling on his side like a bobble head. Before the rat could do anything, TD plunged MarDean's thumb into the rat's gapping mouth; causing the Mobian to stagger back, gagging on the detached digit.

TD was luck that the sun appeared just at that moment, to dazzle the alleyway, because it revealed something very important.

Though TD's shadow's reach was long, it still couldn't disguise the fact that this boy... had no shadow _at all_.

Knowing what to do, TD quickly opened his free hand (after having already placed his weapons back in his coat) and lunged at the boy's chest. In one move, his gloved fingers managed to break through the layer of skin and rib cage until the rat's heart was in his hands. With one flex of his fingers, TD crushed the rotting, decaying heart. Though the boy made no sound, a distant scream filled the alleyway. Before his eyes, the rat began to decay and mould; time having finally caught up with this walking corpse. TD wrenched his hand free, blood and heart flesh all over it, and watched at the skeletal rat fell to the floor; the shadow of the rib cage clearly visible.

Turning round; TD saw that MarDean had fled; wounded but very much alive. He was about to go after him, to give him the death he so rightly deserved. But his ears soon picked up the shallow breaths that were slowly fading away. He turned to the broken, beaten body of Miles; his priorities now set straight.

The boy could die later, nothing mattered more now than to get Miles to a doctor, to Welshscot. Gently, he slowly raised Tails into his arms. Looking down at the slashed face of the fox, he tried to say something, something that wasn't about sunshine; but all he could say was it was 'gonna be a brighter day'.

This curse, the one thing that separated him from all but the ones who either once knew him or waited long enough so he could write something, was why he chose to fight, to kill all who showed injustice to Mutants. There were so many things he wanted to say to Miles, now and when he was conscious and unbeaten, but the song denied him of that simple yet longing act.

Setting aside self-pity once more, TD ran, with Tails in his arms, into the darkness of the shadows; a darkness that he treads alone for the sake of so many, and his only family...

* * *

><p>Within the underground complex of the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre, in a room that had a small, cheap yet comfortable bed, a small stove and a table to cook and eat off, was the ginger-haired medic Welshscot; who was merrily mashing some tatties, or 'mash potatoes' as the English called it, with one hand with the mashing spoon while the over kept the bowl steady.<p>

In celebration of the recovery of his arm, Welsh had decided to treat himself to a nice dinner for a change. Humming the tune 'Endless possibilities', the doctor began to serve his cooking onto two plates; each now held a portion size of tatties, neeps and haggis. He never usually cooked for two, unless CJ or MK was invited, but he wanted to make something for the brown fox, and also to test him.

As the hybrid finished cleaning away the mess and placed the cutlery upon the wooden table, there was a hurried tapping on the door. Knowing who it was; Welshscot began to sit down on the side away from the door, whilst saying loudly, "Come in, Caleb!"

The brown fox almost tore down the door in a mixture of eagerness and nervousness, and he even almost collided with the table. Welsh, who now kept his face blank, rolled his eyes and muttered, "Next time; try not to break the furniture. MK doesn't like to replace furniture broken by brats; he even might ask Fina to take you to court."

Closing the door behind him, Caleb snarled at Welsh. "I am not a brat! And what'd ya mean by Fina taking me to court?"

Welsh shrugged. "I found out from MK that Fina studied law before The Massacre went down. She spent the better of five years trying to become an attorney after finishing law school; she could pass the Bar Exam right now if she wanted. But the last thing Eggman wants is a Pro Mutant Lawyer, so no dice." The hybrid then gestured to the empty seat, inviting Caleb to sit. "But enough about the Omelette; have a seat and have some good ol' haggis and tatties."

The fox did take the seat, but he looked disdainfully at the plate in front of him. He may not be picky about food, but for some reason he didn't like the look of the mesh minced sheep liver, lungs and heart, cooked with onions, oatmeal and suet. He pushed the plate away and lied, "Err, no thanks. I had something to eat before I left the Black Arms." At that moment, his tummy rumbled, loudly.

The hybrid raised an eye brow. "...Ok, if you say so." Taking his eyes off Caleb, he raised his knife and fork and began to dig in to his meal. Caleb watched, wondering how the doctor could eat all that nasty looking food without being sick. A sudden thought struck the fox. Taking a deep breath, he looked at the Welshscot, who was cramming some tatties onto his fork, and tried once more to peek into the hybrid's hidden emotions.

_"__Oh, Caleb..."_

The fox's eyes widened and his heart raced. _No,_ he thought; _it can't be. Truscott... She's..._ Caleb turned round in his chair, and...

Two fresh streams of blood rushed out of his nostrils. _"Fuck-!"_ yelled the brown fox; as he tried to end the blood flow that was dripping from his nose. He shut his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, the sight before him was empty, completely devoid of e—

"So, little Caleb is a pervert."

The fox spun round to face Welshscot; who was letting his face form a wide grin. The empath then stood up, banging his fists upon the table, almost sending his untouched plate to the floor. "What the hell was that?" he demanded; his fists tightening with rage.

The hybrid's grin soon vanished; replaced by a emotionless face yet a curt voice, saying, "I don't know; your mind decided what you see. I just gave it a lustful suggestion when you tried to probe me; what you saw is known only to you. So sit back down and stop acting like a child." The last couple of words were an order; which Caleb followed, not wanting to annoy the man more than he already had.

After a minute of silence, Welshscot finally put down his cutlery and stare at the fox with a nettled glare. "You know," he began; his voice sounding cool and edgy. "You're acting like some bigoted Anti-Mutant human." Caleb was about to object to this statement, but Welsh cut a cross him. "You judge something's worth by it looks and reputation," he gestured at the plate of Scottish food, "and before you even met, or tasted it, you push it away like trash." Caleb shifted in his seat, uncomfortably. "You've got to go up to a person, or put your spoon in it, and find out first hand if he's is, or if it tastes like, an ass. If it does, never speak to that person again, or chuck the food in the bin. If he isn't an ass, then you've found a great friend or the nicest meal you've ever had."

Caleb stared at the grey eyes of the hybrid; his words slowly sinking into the fox's mind. Nervously, under Welsh's watchful eye, the empath pulled the plate towards him, picked up the fork and stabbed at the pile of haggis. He raised the fork to his lips, gulped, and then quickly shoved it into his mouth. He was surprised at how good it taste, savouring the nutty and meaty flavour. But he had to admit...

"It tastes like ass," said Caleb; not sounding offending, more like stating a fact.

Welshscot shrugged. "All haggis taste like ass."

The brown fox spent the next few minutes eating the Scottish food; which luckily hadn't turned cold. After finishing the haggis, he polished off the tatties with no complaint. But the neeps, aka Swede and turnips, was not to his taste. Welsh, glad that he at least tried it, allowed Caleb to throw the remanding neeps into the bin. Besides that, the fox had to admit that the meal had been quite nice. But he was even more impressed that Welsh had constructed a lesson on sociality with a three piles of Scottish delicacies.

Speaking of the hybrid, a small smile was playing on the edge of his mouth. Leaning back on his chair, he said, appraisingly, "It's refreshing to see you can learn, Prentis." Confusion immediately shone from Caleb's face; so the doctor explained, "It's Welsh...for apprentice."

Blink, blink...then—"_Really? _You mean it? _Thank-!_"

But Welsh raised a scaled hand, silencing the excited fox. "But before I teach you anything, you must agree to follow these rules." Caleb's excitement faltered. He stayed completely still, so Welsh began to list out his conditions.

"Firstly, I can only teach you after seven o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I'll be staying here for two more days, but after that I'm moving to the Knotcorn garage; understood?" He nodded. "Secondly, you can't touch my medical supplies without my permission, ask me about TD or call me by my real name, got it?" He bit his lip, as the medic expected, but he still nodded slowly.

"And finally, you must promise to always lend a hand to Mutants. Part of the reason why I'm agreeing to teach you is because this city's Mutants need another Medic to help them. If they're well off then charge them normally; but if a wounded Mutant is poor and desperate, you must promise me to help them; carless of payment—"

The hybrid stopped, his eyes darting all over his room. He heard Caleb say, in a different, vague tone, "Sure, I promise." But right now, he didn't care. He was more concerned on his new pupil's safety. He turned his eyes upon Caleb, while his skin began to crawl, and managed to say calmly, "Ok, you're officially my apprentice, Prentis. Now I'm sure you'd want to go back to the Black Arms; your friends need all the support for tomorrow." He got to his feet and began to usher him out of the door. "I'll see you tomorrow!" And with that, he shut the door on Caleb.

Welsh closed his eyes and pressed his fists against the door. Behind him, the shadows of the stove and table began to move, ever slowly, towards the hybrid. The doctor quickly reached into his shirt; clutching his Argus necklace and began to slowly recite a chant in Creole. The shadows stopped, a feet away from Welsh's own shadow, and there it stayed; like a cat watching his prey.

Then, from out of nowhere, a low, dark and taunting voice echoed from the shadows.

"It's either you or her, Welshald. When the time comes, you know you must accept first; Elliot's soul depends on it."

Still clutching his necklace, the hybrid replied, softly, "...Idiot..."

* * *

><p><em>domi; Untitled (Silent Murder) <em>by Story of the Year

* * *

><p><em>Present<em>

He fingered the hemp bracelets on his wrist nervously, watching his land lord as his chest rose up and down with what seemed like incredible difficulty. The guilt was gnawing at the back of his head like some determined little parasite willing to expose him for what he really was. If only he could have felt Tails' distress a few minutes earlier, maybe this wouldn't have happened. If he had been less afraid to open up to his powers, then he wouldn't have to stare at the broken body of someone he now…_kinda… maybe_considered a friend. It was torturous, watching the monitors and knowing that the kid (too young, _far too young_) might not make it through the night.

He was feeling the pain, and more of it, absorbing the collected emotions of those surrounding the passive body of Miles 'Tails' Prower, on what could possibly be his death bed. Caleb sighed, wiping at his forehead. He understood the emotions that passed through these people when they decided that they needed to do something so needlessly cruel, but he couldn't figure out the_reasons_ behind such _disgusting_ behaviour. It made him sad, sorrow being an emotion that he could truly get.

Silver, Marine and Blaze stood side by side, no longer in quarrel after what had happened. They'd been looking for the fox, and had run into him and Welsh accidentally. All of them had been humbled by guilt as well, standing silently, worried and wracked with fear for the fate of their friend. Tikal was exhausted, having been up all night to stabilise Tails' injuries. Poor guy had been carried back to The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre with three bruised ribs, one broken rib, a scraped lung, a shattered shin bone, a dislocated wrist, multiple cuts, bruises and scars, a broken arm and broken tail bones. By who, they had no evidence… but there was no doubt it had probably been the people that had messed with Tails' board before the race. Tails Doll had carried him back here and disappeared as soon as he came, giving Caleb more reason to speculate over his relation to Tails.

The thugs though... Not only had they done something that deemed them lower than dirt, they'd _felt_ proud. They'd _felt_ like they'd done a good thing. That kind of _fucked up_ thinking almost sent Blaze, Silver, Marine and Caleb on them, if Welshscot hadn't pointed out the fact that _'Can you feel the sunshine?' _was already echoing through the alleyways. The anxiousness everyone felt eventually stumbled out of his mouth in rapid succession, aimed at the hippie doctor, "Is he going to make it?"

Tikal was hesitant about this, rising from her chair by Tails' bed and looking over his body solemnly, an expression that Caleb could have figured out, regardless if he had empathy or not, "This was a disgusting, vicious attack. And unfortunately, even if he does survive, he might never be able to use his flying ability again."

Silver sniffed, but he wiped away no tears, they trickled down Blaze and Marine's eyes though, who were just on the edge of hysteria because of it, "That's terrible."

"Even if he doesn't lose that ability," she sighed sadly, turning to them with large eyes, "he won't be able to use it for months."

He knew he could possibly get hit for this, but even though Tails was asleep, he could still feel an immense amount of regret welling in him, and he just needed to ask, on Tails' behalf, "That's all tragic and that, but is he going to be able to race in the next round?"

Caleb winced and shuddered at the sharp loathing directed in his direction, maybe he shouldn't have asked, maybe he shouldn't have said anything in the first place. Marine stared him down with the most hideous expression he had ever seen on her, "I _can't believe _you just said that."

The fox snarled at her, knowing that she couldn't possibly understand the pain he was feeling, all of their combined disgust, pain, fear and anxiousness combined together was a lot for someone to handle. This is why he had cut himself off from his power in the first place; there was always _so much pain_. One couldn't revel in his own emotions when he was always surrounded by the feelings of others. "Think of me what you want, but you don't understand what Tails is going through. Unfortunately enough, I wish that _I_wasn't either. But I _am_, and he's regretting not being able to participate in the Grand Prix more than anything." He wrapped his wrist around a piece of beaded string hanging from his wrist, "He's going to give you more grief about not being able to participate, than not being able to use his tails."

Welshscot was the voice of reason again, something that Caleb was rapidly getting used to, "I think he's right." He felt some pride at the small comment, but not enough joy to convey physically when he was so laden down by everyone's depression.

Tikal spoke up, "If he continues like this, and we don't get the right medical supplies… he could die. You're either going to need a real hospital facility, which could kill him anyway, or some kind of miracle."

The silenced weighed them all down for the longest time before Caleb noticed the human medic crossing his arms over in concentration. He really wanted to read what he was feeling, but had already learnt that Welshscot didn't like it, and would retaliate by doing something horrible to him later, like faking another unrestrained urge to kill him. The calm, commanding aura that he received from anyone dealing with medical practice didn't just come with the job, it was instilled in the personality of the doctor, which is something that Caleb respected in the medic. It was a safer contrast with his impulsive, reckless nature, "There's only one miracle I know of that's actually possible right now."

"What's that?" Tikal asked, and Caleb caught gist of what the medic might have been implying by the brief flash of disbelief in Tikal's emotions.

He put forward his suggestion questioningly, hesitantly, "Aloe?"

Welshscot nodded, making Caleb smile, straightening his back a little while Silver asked, "How would you get something like that?"

The fox leant over the hedgehog's ear and whispered very quietly in his ear, "Something _illegal, _like _smuggling._"

Silver growled and pushed him away, making him run into the bed, which Welshscot frowned at him for. His ears flattened against his head, embarrassed as Silver brushed off his fur, his expression becoming serious, "Shut up, you conceited asshole. Now really, how are you going to get it?"

Welshscot answered in a curt, blunt manner, "General Whiskers."

Marine perked up, ears twitching in interest, "'D'aww, grouse! Can I come?"

The medic smiled down at her, seemingly amused by her enthusiasm, "Yeah, we'd need you to sweet talk him into a discount, wouldn't we?"

"O'right." She puffed up her chest proudly, wiping at her nose with her fist, "S'glad you fellas 'ave got so much faith in me barterin' abilities."

Silver narrowed his eyes, "What's the backup plan?"

Welshscot answered without hesitation, "Prentis." When everyone, except the fox, looked at him bewildered, the medic sighed, "Seriously? It close to the English version and you still can't get it?" He didn't even wait for them to shake their heads, before adding curtly, "It's Welsh for apprentice..."

When the message finally sunk in, the hedgehog fist-pumped and pointed at the offended raccoon, "I knew it!"

The hybrid rolled his eyes, "Sure you did, Lleidr."

She sulked away, Blaze following after her, still disheartened by the entire event. When they were out of the room Tikal turned to Silver, blue eyes lowered, "Contact Sonic please, he's Tails' guardian."

Caleb was honestly surprised by the information, turning to look at Tails as if he would wake up and verify the information. He had to remind himself sometimes that Tails was only fourteen, despite the way that he acted, "Really? That's screwed up; they act like it's the other way around."

The echidna smiled a little bit, but her deep blue eyes still betrayed sadness and fear, "Mm. But you've never seen them in a situation quite like this before."

_Yeah, I've still got a lot to learn._

* * *

><p><em>Iridescent <em>by Linkin Park

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_It's gonna be a brighter day…"_

Blurry flashes of red. Of grey. Of yellow. Of black. Of flesh. And screaming. And squelching. And cracking. So much screaming.

He'd been stuck in purgatory for what seemed like millennia, seconds from surfacing and sinking deeper into death's embrace with every laboured breath. His first thought upon hearing the ominous beep, beep, beep of a hospital monitor was that he was in some kind of sick 'out of body' experience where he could slowly, _slowly _watch himself die. He'd be tortured continuously by watching his friends cry and wail over his dead body, because Tails wasn't conceited. Unlike those brief thoughts he'd had before he died, he_knew_ there were some people that cared about him.

At least MarDean would be happy.

He floated around in his unconsciousness for little longer, before something bright and annoying started to penetrate his small little piece of abyss. It started as the darkness simply breaking the endless black with a sea of grey smoothing itself into his mind. That grey phased through all colours of the rainbow until it became bright yellow, burning through the veins in his eyelids. He was forced to open his eyes, cracking them reluctantly so his irises were flooded with visions so bright in saturation he cringed, but even that small movement aggravated absolutely _everything_ in his body.

Breathing in and out was a chore better left to focusing on, just to make sure he was doing it right, and even then, it was harder than it should have been.

"Sh'yo, I think he's waking up."

He blinked a few times to clear his vision, eyes landing on a ceiling made out of patchwork metal. Cold, unfeeling metal. He found a smile was too much of a strain when he noticed the familiar surroundings of the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre. Sitting and standing around his bed were several familiar faces with different expressions all around. The first he noticed was Caleb, who had spoken. He turned around and told Sonic to 'cool it'. Tails found that a little odd; Sonic having to be told to calm down.

His friends started to surround him, watching him as if he was some kind of museum exhibit rather than a person. Did he look so disfigured that they couldn't tell it was him? Wait a second… he was _alive? _Maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought. Maybe he'd still be able to compete in the Grand Prix and stop Eggman after all.

"Hey, Lil' Buddy. How are you doing?"

Tails rolled his eyes, he was glad to be alive.

"How…" he coughed, his voice was raspy and dry, "…do you _think_ I'm doing?"

"Little smart aleck," Sonic smiled, narrowing his eyes. There was a brief moment of happiness before the tension flooded back into the room like water. Sonic's face became serious and Tails tried to adjust himself to make the bed more comfortable. There was… an ominous feeling around, like something was definitely up with Sonic's demeanour. He just... oh no…

"You're not competing in the Grand Prix anymore."

Amazingly enough, his answer was immediate, joking. But it was more a reaction of disbelief than anything, "Yeah, Blue. The hell I'm not."

"I'm serious."

"And I'm Metal Sonic."

"_Tails."_

"_Sonic."_

Ordinarily, he wouldn't have opposed Sonic so strongly, after all, Tails was used to letting others have their way while he stood in the background and complied, but this was something he would not stand aside for. Sonic was _not_ the boss of him.

"I'm competing." He declared.

"_No._ You're _not."_

"You can't stop me," Tails snarled, a movement that aggravated all his muscles. The medics noticed this and stepped forward cautiously, but Tails shot them a look that almost screamed 'Stay out of this!' They didn't need to see Caleb cautiously taking his leave to follow right after him, along with Silver, Marine and Blaze.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a _promise!_"

"You're _not _entering that race!" Sonic demanded with green eyes wide. There was anger, frustration and urgency in his face, but_fear_ trampled over the rest of those emotions. Tails would have clenched his fists if he didn't know it would hurt a whole damn lot._Fear_ was the reason he wanted to enter the Grand Prix in the first place; to _eradicate _it. His big brother was pretty much proving his point. And Sonic had been one of the only people that supported his decision on the first place.

"What?" Sonic asked, probably to the expression of contemplation of Tails' expression.

"'Cowardice' is unsightly on you Sonic, you should drop it."

"Well then stop giving me reasons to act like this. I don't want you hurt."

"I'm not a child!"

"You're _still_ a kid. Tails," Sonic sighed, clenching his fists in the way that Tails wished he could, "You're _fourteen. _No one carried the world on their shoulders at that age."

Tails snarled at him, baring his pointed canines, "When did you take up position as leader of the Freedom Fighters?" Sonic widened his eyes, scratching his quills nervously, "When _everyone_ was in dismay about The Crimson Night, when everyone thought that The Fallen Angel would come along and rip out their throats _who_ gave them hope and went after Eggman… _by himself?_"

Sonic wasn't answering, too embarrassed that he had been acting like such a hypocrite. Tails winced at the amount of strain that he was putting on his body, but when Sonic came forward to help him he growled and repeated, _"Who?"_

"Okay! _I did!_ Solaris, Tails… It was different back then! Eggman still showed his face, Extreme Gear was legal, and once _they _were on our side…" Sonic trailed off.

"Eggman is surrounding himself with a wall of bullies and technology. Technology I can handle…"

"But-!" his big brother paused, trying to figure out how to word his thoughts, "The bullies nearly _killed_ you! It's going to take you forever to heal, and do you know what Tikal said while you were asleep?"

"What?"

"You might never be able to fly again."

Alright. Tails would admit that it did come as _quite_ the shock. He loved flying, but as he grew he realised he was using the ability less and less. Now that there was a prospect of losing it the thought became devastating. But Tails, always the sensible person (even though recent acts would have put that statement into question) thought about everything in a bigger perspective; would he have preferred a Soleanna without the mutant community fearing for their lives, _or_ would he prefer his flight ability? Some small part of Tails foolishly screamed out 'flight' but the bigger part of him, the part that was still angry about his parents' desecration, didn't give a damn anymore.

"So?"

Sonic spluttered, as if he was expecting Tails to be meaninglessly selfish, "_'So?', 'So?' _Tails, that flight ability was the reason you gained your nickname in the first place! You've been able to do it since you were a kit! How can you just turn your back on the ability to fly like you can? It'd be like- like giving up my super speed."

"Are you saying you would love me any less, if I didn't have this ability?"

"No!" Sonic said, "Stop twisting my words around."

"Stop putting your foot in your mouth," Tails replied, unimpressed. As far as he was concerned, this was a done deal.

"I'm pulling you out of this competition whether you _like it or not._" Sonic seethed, grinding his teeth, "I will _not_ lose someone I love to Eggman again."

"Well _you_ don't have any say in it! I was accepted as an adult when I went into this competition. I was given my own rights, and one of them was that only _I_ get to pull myself out of the competition, until I either lose or am disqualified."

"_Dammit Tails!" _Sonic slammed his fist onto the bedside table, rattling the painkillers that shook and spilled atop its surface, "_Stop_trying to be me! Being a hero isn't for everyone."

Tails chest heaved as he stared at Sonic with great, wide eyes, "You-you _honestly_ think that I'm doing this because of some screwed up hero complex?"

Sonic paused, placing a gloved hand towards his chest, "And you think that's why _I_ do it?"

"Yes!" Tails yelled, straining against the pain in his body, "I _can't_ believe that you would be so conceited as to think the only reason I've entered into a death race to _imitate _you!"

"Well then why _are_ you in this competition?"

"BECAUSE I WANT TO _KILL_ EGGMAN! THAT'S WHY!"he screamed, a few seconds after the outburst he started hacking uncontrollably in which Sonic's expression went from outburst to worry.

"Tails, buddy you-"

"_G-get out! Get the hell out, Sonic!" _he demanded. He would have pointed at the door but one of his wrists was dislocated and his arm was broken. Instead he just snarled and sent Sonic the ugliest look that he could muster. He was _so_ angry at him right now.

"Tails! This race is ruining you! It's ruining _everyone!_ Have you even _looked_ at your face?"

"What's a little disfigurement compared to other people? Just… go away!"

"Tails. I'm only trying to protect y-"

"Sonic, you're _not_ my father! So…" he knew he shouldn't say it, but Sonic wasn't getting the fact that he just didn't want to deal with him right now, _"piss off!"_

He looked away at the hurt expression that passed over Sonic's features, turning back to watch him exit while the medics rushed in to see if he was alright. He was physically no better than before, but by the way that Caleb tentatively patted his shoulder, Tails supposed his emotional state was twice as bad as before.

Curious, he looked to the brown fox that was furrowing his eyebrows and asked, "Is there a mirror around?"

"You don't want to see it."

"Yes I do."

Caleb bit his lip before moving over to Tikal's medical tools and clearing a tray, bringing it over and holding it up so Tails could inspect his face. Most of the bruising was hidden by his fur, but he couldn't find much skin that hadn't been reduced to an ugly blotchy purple cover. Most prominent out of the distinguishable marks on his face were two thick cuts, one running over his left eye, and the other underneath his right. They weren't going to heal without scars.

"You know," Caleb murmured quietly, "damaged skin heals stronger."

The fellow fox laughed humourlessly before tracing one of the scars with his finger.

"What about broken hearts?"

He locked eyes with Tails for a few careful seconds, seeing the sadness conveyed in that short moment of vulnerability before Caleb turned away… and shook his head.

* * *

><p><em>Russian Roulette <em>by Rihanna

* * *

><p>Wave was tapping the end of her pen against the papers in front of her. She had been pouring over Soleanna news ever since they had arrived. Seeing Blaze's board had been a wake-up call. They were running out of time and sources, and she'd estimated that their time limit was until the Soleanna Grand Prix was over. She heaved in a deep sigh and stood up abruptly when the brown fox walked into the Black Arms.<p>

"Ah, Heartnet," Jet clapped his hands together, "about bloody time you got here."

"Ch'yeah whatever, Jettison," he replied, ignoring the indignant spluttering of the discarded hawk, "Okay, I just dropped off that god-forsaken rabbit. Let's get down to business."

Wave blinked a second, still wondering how this could be the same Caleb that dedicated the little time that he spent in Black Arms to annoying the hell out of Silver, and irritating everyone else, "The deal?"

The fox unrolled a spread of official looking papers, detailed and labelled for easy access. Wave was about to step forward and snatch them, but Caleb had seen it coming and snatched at a can of motor oil, threatening to throw it over the map. It was Eggman's base, a map of a place like this was priceless, but Caleb had no use for it so they acted cautiously.

The Babylon rogues crowded around him, wondering if beating him to a pulp would spill the answers they needed. Automatically she could tell that Caleb was not that kind of person, and would probably flee before they even went near such hostile thoughts. Empathy must be a really useful power.

"I require your services in thievery."

"And what will you be giving us in return?" Jet asked.

"These maps. I'm also getting my hands on an electronic version." He turned to Wave, his dark cobalt eyes boring into hers, "I'll also be giving you a tape, to prove _he's _alive."

The swallow gulped and nodded. That was definitely what she wanted.

"What are you asking for exactly?" said Storm, who was scanning the maps with curious eyes, "What will we be retrieving?"

He rolled up the maps and stuffed them into his flannel pockets, "General Whiskers is going to be receiving a shipment of Barbaderis in a week, and I need you to… liberate it."

"Is it worth it? How much is aloe vera going for in the Black Markets?" Wave questioned, writing 'Barbaderis' on her notepad.

"It's currently non-existent in the markets."

"Well then how do you know how much it's worth?" Jet asked snippily, but Caleb decided to ignore the tone. They should have known something like this, so they could have brought Aloe Vera into the city for free and gained heaps and heaps of money. But they technically weren't mutants, so this wasn't exactly common knowledge.

"Going back over thirty years of research, _Parrot-Boy. _It is estimated that a three hundred millilitre bottle of Aloe is going at seventeen thousand rings and _over_." The Babylon Rogues' eyes bulged out of their sockets. _All that_ for a plant that was common in any other country in the world. "Aloe Vera is known to our kind as 'The Plant of Immortality', and do you know why?"

Wave snorted, "It's because its healing agents are stronger than any natural plant combined."

Caleb rolled his eyes, "S'not just that, Sparrow."

"Swallow!"

"As I was sayin'. It may not be known to many others parts of mutant society but Aloe is _our_ miracle plant. Its chemical property alone works in harmony with the mutant gene associated with the fight or flight, or the general survival instincts to make us stronger and heal faster. Not _only _that though, while it's in the mutant body or over mutant flesh, it increases the strength of our power tenfold. The active anthraquinone chemical alone, used with humans and Mobians as an immunisation extract, works differently for us, providing us with the ability to dispel dangerous diseases before they can get into the blood stream, example? Poison… _any kind_.

"It can't heal everything, but it can stop _anything_ harmful from getting into our bodies unless it's already settled or we have been born with it." Caleb looked away absently, something brief flickering through his eyes before he spoke up again, "It works different with every mutant; like mutants that have armour become near invincible. For me, the active polymannans sugars not only increase my immune system, but work with the receptors of my brain to increase the frequency and transmission of my empathy powers. Regularly, I can only work with people within a twenty meter radius, on Aloe that spans into around one hundred and eighty, plus I can also catch glimpses of visions or thoughts to better explain someone's emotion."

"If this is plant is so amazing, then why isn't Aloe Vera so rare outside of the walls of Soleanna?" Jet asked. Caleb cleared his throat and hoisted himself onto Tails' workbench.

"If you'd been paying proper attention, Birdie, you'd have noticed that the genes of mutants outside of Soleanna get weaker and weaker the farther from the city you go. Their life expectancy and quality of life is also in decline due to the fact that they are constantly plagued with illnesses and general fatigue that even Aloe Vera cannot fix. They normally don't live to the age of eighteen if they aren't born here. If they manage to escape Soleanna borders for more than five years we start getting sick and die. It has something to do with being _here_.

"There was an obvious spike in the mutant population sometime around The Crimson Night, but researchers still don't understand why. They're accounting it to the growth of Aloe Vera in the surroundings, such as that Aloe farm that was destroyed in the forest. The mutant power source, the gene, circulates around _this_ city, but no one's figured out what it is, and probably will not know for millennia to come. Now back to the Aloe! I hear it's being stored inside the warehouses that were used to hold the Egg Giant used to destroy the cemetery nearby, you know the one?"

"Yeah," Storm said, "Prower was really upset about it."

The brown fox nodded his head, "Yeah, it's no question why. I had a cry about it myself."

"Someone important to you there?" Wave asked, but cringed at the way that Caleb furrowed his brows.

"As I was sayin', none would have the kinda cash that General Whiskers wants, so we'll be takin' that Aloe right out from under his nose. Besides, this is a non-Eggman scheme, since Eggman is so against the idea of Aloe in Soleanna, so he's not gonna have Egg Pawns as backup, he'll probably be renting some armed guns. Ya gets?"

The Babylon Rogues nodded, but Wave still had some curiosity to slake, "How do you even know it works, have you been outside the walls of Soleanna?"

Caleb nodded, "Yeah, I had two years of GUN cadet camp for being a horrendous bitch to my father. My roomies were good friends, but total assholes, and used to spike my drinks with Aloe all the time."

"Isn't getting Aloe a good thing?" Storm said.

Caleb grinned, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "Have you ever heard the saying, 'Too much of a good thing'? Let's just say that a lot of embarrassing stories come out of empaths drinking Aloe, exceeding the normal amount and drinking it for fun. It's not harmful… Aloe Vera was made into a drink because it tastes good after all but..."

"Are we going to see _you_ drinking it?" Jet asked.

"_Fuck_ no. I learnt my lesson… kinda. 'Sides, Welshscot doesn't want me handlin' anything remotely medical yet. But whatever, are you accepting the mission or not?"

"Oh, no. I want to see you drink the Aloe." Jet grinned.

"_Stop_ acting like such a bloody carrot!"

The Babylon Rogues looked at his strangely. Caleb realised what he had said and scratched the back of his head nervously, "Ah, sorry. Random habit there. Just found out that whenever my mentor says 'moron' he actually means 'carrot' and… um… fuck, just answer my question."

"Why do you need the Aloe?" Storm asked. Caleb was shocked by the question, or seemingly, his blue eyes widening to a size that she hadn't seen before. As quickly as the look had come, it disappeared, and he bared his pointed canines to snarl at the bird as if the boys were showing some crazed, testosterone filled competition she couldn't understand.

"To start a revolution." He replied sarcastically, but Wave was unsure how _real_ the statement was. It seemed that even the most level-headed people here had been driven to the point of insanity (one such example was Tails), "Well?"

Wave, Storm and Jet looked at each other for a full five seconds before grinning. When was the last time they'd pulled of a heist this big? The danger. The cause. It was thrilling.

"Yeah, you gotta deal."


	15. Save Tonight

**domi|note: **Stuff, stuff, and a little more stuff. You know? I split this chapter up because I'm just impatient I guess, and I need some inspiration. This is kind of like, a mini-chapter (only 30% of the original) mostly because I need to fix the rest of it for plot analysis.

Thanks to **Undead009**, **Angel-of-Energy**, **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **Synobis**, **SmallSpek**, **WelshScot**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **LordCooler** and **Kobiee **for reviewing the last chapter.

_Synobis- _It's not _my_ take on Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll, but thank you. I like Fiona too. I haven't gotten around to reading it as of late, I have found myself unable to read fanfiction while still trying to wrap my head around David Copperfield. I _will_ get to it eventually.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>We judge others by their behaviour. We judge ourselves by our intentions. ~Ian Percy<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifteen  
>.<em>  
>"Let's run away from these lies. Back to yesterday, save tonight. I feel the sun creeping up like tick, tock."<br>…_  
><em>_What Makes You Beautiful _by One Direction

* * *

><p>She slammed down the last metallic panel with an over exaggerated flourish, taking up the gear in her hands and examining it from all angles. She basked in the glory that was her unmatched Extreme Gear skills for a few more minutes before deeming the board sufficient and fantastic. Nothing less could be expected of Wave the swallow, Extreme Gear extraordinaire. She was extremely proud of her work, and received fan-mail and compliments from mechanics all over the world.<p>

So when she skipped up to the leader of the Babylon Rogues, of which she _was_ the _mechanic _after all, she _might_ have been expecting a nice word or two. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation has always been fairly distorted and somewhat… varying from the possible possibilities of what could have resulted in a fairly satisfied smile. It was a factor of Wave's life that she was increasingly becoming used to. Actually, she should have been used it by now, would Jet get off his fucking horse and realised how much she _worked_ needlessly for him.

So no, 'Yeah. Whatever, Wave.' was not her ideal compliment. By now, she was willing to settle with anything along the lines of a positive connotation, considering the fact that she had just driven herself to the absolute edge of insanity trying to get Jet's board working for him again. No… 'Yeah. Whatever, Wave.' was not going to cut it.

She growled instead, hands twitching in preparation to slap the ever-living bajeezus out of her leader when he snatched the gear out of her hands and instead dropped a small piece of paper into her palm, holding out a picnic basket.

"Don't cha worry Wave, we're not gonna have our resident mechanic out doing something as menial as a job." He joked, clapping a hand on her shoulder, "A woman's place is in the garage after all."

Despite wanting to, seconds ago, slam his feathered green head into the workbench and spill his gray matter across Tails' tools, she smiled and laughed, feeling the effects of fatigue wash over her like drowning in coffee. It was a little joke between them, laughing at the fact that Jet had always been the better cooker out of all The Rogues (even if his skills barely passed the microwaveable standards), plus how every woman in Wave's family had found their residence among fenders and wrenches rather than dainty Sunday dresses and cooking pots.

She _was_ grateful. Jet and Storm were giving up their free time for her, pulling in the earnings that she should have been while she researched and planned on their late night heists, learning more and more so that they could reach their ultimate goal. After all, if she wasn't planning anything this team wouldn't be going anywhere. She was the glue that stuck them together and made sure they were one hundred percent functional. She supposed she was happy about her current working order… though Jet might have been a little more lenient about the compliments.

"I suppose you're right," she replied, after she had sufficiently calmed down, "what's up?"

Jet gestured towards the picnic basket at his side, "This needs to be delivered to The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre. Since you've just fixed my board, I find no reason not to take on some more work while you go and deliver it."

"Who does it need to be delivered to?" she said, examining the roughly penned directions. It wasn't bad; after all, she needed to know Soleanna more, geographical wise. And she didn't have the necessary components to finish Storm's board.

"Some person called 'Miles'. Friend of all our _pleasant_ roomies," the hawk declared sarcastically, watching Wave as she scooped her own board from out of its charger.

"Just call me 'Little Red Riding Hood'."

"Red hardly had Extreme Gear to help her with the wolves. Now go off, and if they ask you a weird question you have to answer with 'Pachacamac', okay?" Jet grinned before waving her off. So she was learning to get over her temper. Point one for Wave.

She managed to find her way easily enough; navigation wasn't hard for someone that had to guestimate what was happening with Extreme Gear tracks constantly changing. This errand still irked at her so though. Even if she needed the small little break from being cooped up in The Black Arms (which wouldn't really be cooping her up, as that place is fucking _huge_) she still could have been researching on that mission Caleb had given her team.

She wanted to know who his connections were, because as of right now, she decided they must have been some _damn_ important people if they were going to start a real rebellion. And yes, she _had_ decided that Caleb was _not_ kidding, there was a lot of crooked stuff flying about the people she found herself waking up to in the morning. One second they were teenagers fighting over the couch remote and poking their heads into each others rooms to find artefact 'a' only to see their friends had been keeping artefacts 'b', 'c' and 'w' hidden under their beds, then next they were vigilantes and these amazing figureheads with reputations that spanned the limitations of Soleanna and beyond. To say something like that was not mind-blowing was like running up to Santa Clause and saying 'It's okay! It's okay! I can explain _everything._' Yeah, it was lying, only to herself.

She'd found herself, and her best friends, her brothers, stuck in something far more sinister and ridiculous than she had ever thought possible. Soleanna was _amazing. _She could see now, why her grandfather had wanted to see the situation for himself. She wished it had turned out any other way.

The Garden Centre was an enigma to her. In a landscape that was three cups short of drought, the only thing that grew up in Crisis City soil were trees that looked dead from the get-go, and people to match. Inside was beautiful foliage with exotic plants she'd seen all over the globe, and then some she hadn't. She wasn't exactly a botanist, but some greenery did catch her attention. What she wondered now was, in this artificial forest, where would someone keep a secret facility for sleeping when everything was so fantastically camouflaged.

She crossed a tall red-headed woman, who upon further inspection, Wave realised, actually carried a bionic arm and a blue-coloured artificial optic. She seemed kind and willing to help out a poor stranger that didn't know what she was doing, "Excuse me?" she asked, in the I'm-dropping-this-tone-as-soon-as-I-get-what-I-want voice.

"Oh, hello," she replied, walking over to Wave with an amazing amount of grace and poise. Up close she was even prettier, with a gorgeous body and sweet features that weren't entirely ruined by the use of a mechanical eye, "I'm looking for someone."

The lady in front of her narrowed her eyes, distrust clouding her expression, now examining Wave with a critical eye, "What's his name?"

"Miles."

"Why?"

"I'm dropping something off from his friends. From what I've gathered in this picnic basket I'm assuming he's sick or something?" Wave answered honestly, because she had nothing to hide in a situation like this. She allowed the woman to look inside the basket, her mechanical eye doing a scan of the food and books inside until she finished with a satisfied nod.

"What's your name?"

"Wave."

"What is the board's password?"

Wave automatically assumed this was supposed to be the weird question, she hoped so anyway, "'Pachacamac'?"

The lady's expression lost its icy tint and her face immediately warmed over, handing Wave back the basket and leading her deeper into the fake forest, "How do you know Miles?"

Wave rolled her eyes, "I _don't. _I'm just errand girl at the moment."

"Well, you've got to be closer than you think if you know the password."

The mechanic bunched her shoulders around her neck in a nonchalant shrug as she was lead deeper and deeper into the maze, passing elegant Japanese styled fishponds opposite large trees found in mountaineer countries. The human grip of the woman around her wrist was probably as strong as her metal limb. She was probably a fighter.

"What's _your_ name?" she asked, feeling like she should have been on level ground with this woman.

"I'm Fina."

"No last name?" the swallow questioned.

Their pace did not slow as they ventured further into the unknown. For all that Wave had said this woman could be leading her to an Eggman ambush where she'd be shot in the head at point blank range. Still, she didn't seem like that kind of woman. Actually… no one seemed to be who they really were in this city. The swallow was now ready to train her sixth sense on character judgement before it got her killed.

"It's…" Fina murmured the word so quietly she almost couldn't hear it, "Auto. Fina Auto."

Obviously, the name held more symbolism than what Wave was willing to get into, but she did smile when she saw a mirroring expression on the human, like some kind of guilty pleasure, a hidden delight the bionic lady had indulged herself in.

They were soon so deep into The Garden Centre Wave knew she was going to have trouble finding her way out, they stepped into a metal hallway that looked rather bland, before turning into a series of underground tunnels that turned lavish and highly decorative. They started to see more Mobians, mostly echidnas that regarded Fina with a kind wave, a smile or a greeting. She returned them all back, seemingly at ease being the only human there. She passed a corridor of bedrooms, a large kitchen which looked more like a cafeteria, a _huge_ lounge/entertainment room that looked almost as big as the Black Arms Garage's first floor until they finally got to the end, a room labelled 'Sick Bay'.

It looked more like a hospital wing than a sick bay, but currently there was only one person occupying the bed. There were three people surround the patient, two of which she recognised instantly. Apparently, he surprise was enough to trigger Caleb's reaction, because he turned around and caught her eye, sending the other two a cautious glance before making his way over to the stunned swallow and Fina, who greeted the brown fox with a courteous nod.

"What are _you_ doing here?" they asked each other at the same time, but Caleb shot his sentences in faster than she managed to.

"Did Blaze and the white one, manage to get back alright? I know Marine's still here."

"Yeah," she replied, "they're fine but, have you been here all this time? Jet, Storm and I have needed your help with Whiskers."

He made an irritated sound which sounded like a cross between a grunt and a short whine, crossing his arms over his chest, "You're a Babylon Rogue, aren't you? I haven't overestimated you, have I?" he asked teasingly.

She rolled her eyes, suddenly feeling a bout of happiness. She laughed and punched his arm gently, later a little surprised by her boldness. His eyes turned warm for a few careful minutes, and he looked down to the picnic basket, spelling the question out with his expression. Suddenly, she was released from that haze of delight, suddenly feeling a little irritated… or maybe it was the original irritation she had felt in the beginning of her whole ordeal. She wondered what that was about for like, three seconds before she snarled at Caleb, "What are you _doing?_"

"I asked you first, didn't I?" he smirked.

"I wasn't talking about _that,_" she growled, but it didn't look like he was going to explain his motives anytime soon. Stupid manipulative little…

"Are you just going to stand here or are you actually going to give it to him?" Tikal asked as she and Marine passed through, taking Caleb and Fina with them. She watched as Marine tried to lightly cuffed Caleb over the ear, succeeding in lightly slapping his face, and the brown fox retaliated by saying, 'What? I was _helping_ her!'

She shrugged her shoulders and turned to the patient, widening her eyes, "_You're _ Miles?"

Tails looked back at her curiously, "Well… hello to you too?"

"I have a delivery for Miles."

"That's me. Miles Prower, aka; Tails."

Wave raised an eyebrow and made her way over to his bedside, dumping the basket on his cot carelessly. His eyes widened before he winced, letting out a few ragged pants.

Her reaction came slowly, eyes roving over the parts of his body that weren't covered with a blanket. He was wearing a t-shirt she had seen him with often, but it was only now that she noticed the bandages criss-crossing underneath the material. And then she saw the bandages wrapped around his arms, the cast around his wrist, the other cast around his other arm, the various cuts and bruises all along his fur. She inhaled slowly as her gaze landed on his face. He couldn't open his left eye; it had been slashed across with a blade, leaving a scar. The other was under his right eye, barely cutting into the flesh where his eyelashes were. They were so prominent, so horrific.

She muttered a quick 'Sorry' and pulled up the chair next to his bed, placing the basket in her lap, "What happened to you, Kitty?"

He gave her a somewhat conflicted expression, before looking down at the basket in her hands, "Why do you call me that?"

She smiled a little, looking down and tracing the edge of the picnic basket with a finger, "In Chu Nan, there is a word for legendary fox demons with more than two tails. They are called kitsune."

He furrowed his eyes, "I've never been to Chu Nan." That brief note she had learned before, about mutants not being able to leave Soleanna crossed her mind. Tails had probably never left Soleanna in his life. "So you think I'm a demon?"

She rolled her eyes and smiled, "In Asia there's a very thin line between demons and gods. Much like your Solaris and Argus culture here."

"Still doesn't change the fact that that nickname sounds… _weird._ Not to mention the fact that you're being vague and somewhat _abnormal._"

"Oh, _love_ that, you pesky little twit," she rolled her eyes in playful amusement, and she couldn't help feeling as though there was a possibility she was being manipulated, "isn't that somewhat hypocritical?"

"Sarcasm; it's this thing where you say something that's ironic and fairly insulting," he smirked, narrowing his eyes in a way that, for a second, actually looked pretty damn alluring. And then she remembered that he was insinuating the fact that she was being naïve and stupid.

"But you weren't-"

"No," he said, "I was using hyperbole," his tongue peeked out from between his pointed teeth, the corner of his open eye crinkling up in amusement, "because sarcasm is the language of the losers."

"Oh yeah?" she snorted, knowing that he was definitely lying.

"_Totally."_ He replied eyeing the basket before they both burst out into laughter, "_Little Miss Sunshine_ told me so."

"I _love_ that movie!" she said enthusiastically before she realised exactly how loud she'd said it. She crossed her leg over the other and lifted up the basket in offering. He bit his lip and made a gesture with his head, referring to the fact that he couldn't exactly take it from her with nearly no movement in his arms, "Soz."

"'Soz'?" he laughed, "Where did you even get that?"

"Australian Slang. Just found out that Heartnet spent a little time in Downunda. Funny thing is, he can speak with Marine _and _understand what she's saying."

"What? _No!_" Tails' eyes shone through his mock-surprise.

"_Yes!" _she exclaimed, "I _swear_ it's like an entirely different language."

"I think Caleb is here with Marine today. It's weird... they get along so well. So, what's in the basket?"

"Well, let's find out." She opened said basket and pulled out a tupperware container, placing it on top of the basket for closer inspection. Tails almost drooled at the sight, "What is it? You look like you're about to do inane and unspeakable things to it."

"I would." He made a whine that sounded like a gargle, "That's Amy's triple-laired mango graham pudding."

"Well, you're looking at it like it's some kind of topless bikini model. Just _what_ are they feeding you here?"

"I'm not exactly trusting the food. Caleb spent two hours hacking up in _that_ toilet," he jerked his head in the direction of the restroom opposite him, "and he says Welshscot doesn't know how to cook. Welsh says he's allergic to sheep. I'm going with 'allergic' since he managed to eat that gnarly crap that Shadow cooked the first night you stayed at Black Arms. Maybe he smokes? There aren't that many reasons for the absolute destructions of his taste buds. Either way, he's never going to touch liver again. Said it taste almost as bad as something called 'Vegemite'."

"Oh, I've heard of that. It's 'Marmite' in every other part of the globe."

"What else is there?"

"I reckon it was probably Lady Violet that picked out these books for you," she said, showing him the covers and watching him sigh in relief. Must have been boring when you couldn't even reach the remote to change the channel, "And then there's an ever-so-thoughtful list of angry clientele that you owe boards to, judging by the writing, I'd say it was Shadow who was being the considerate one."

"Dammit," he rocked his head for a second, the curse coming out stretched and crooked. After a second he looked to her with wide, pleading eyes and said, "Can you do me a favour?"

"Psst. No." Was her immediate response.

"Please?"

"What do you need done anyway?"

"I need my Gear log, to see what I need to catch up on."

She felt a little lament over the fact that she was being so mean, and then she realised that Heartnet was still trying to manipulate her, "Listen, just because I'm delivering this, doesn't mean we can act all buddy-buddy now, okay?"

Tails raised an eyebrow, "Is it your time of the month?"

Wave snarled when she heard a bunch of raucous laughter from outside, _"No!"_ Someone outside had collapsed and they were now banging their fists on the floor, "I'm never playing delivery girl again."

She dumped the basket and strutted out, not liking the fact that she had been manipulated into being nice to Tails. When she slammed open the Sick Bay door, Caleb was helping Marine off the floor and yelling at her to 'get up before the witch gets her wrench out'. She almost _did_ but her phone had started vibrating in her pocket, 'Catch me if you can' playing at full blast. That gave the two eavesdroppers enough time to run around the corner and escape her 'PMSing' rage.

"Mhmm," she groaned into the phone, moaning even louder when Jet's voice answered.

"_Ancestors. Did you make the delivery?"_

"_Why_ didn't you tell me that 'Miles' was Prower's first name?"

The hawk made a small sound of surprised before scoffing to cover up the noise, saying, _"Ugh… because you need to be /nicer/ to him?"_

"You're pathetic."

"_I know. I've got a new mission for you."_

"Jet-" she said warningly, fingers flinching.

"_Hey! Hey! It involves that radiator unit you've needed for Storm's board, it's going at four hundred rings one side of Castle Town."_

She paused, hoisting up her gear so that it was balancing on her hip, "Alright… that's pretty cheap. Where's it at? Are you coming?"

"_I'll send you directions. Mm, yes. But you'll be meeting up with Storm first. It's /his/ board. But see, thing I hear is; they allow discounts for pretty girls."_

Wave narrowed her eyes, trying to remember her way out of The Garden Centre, "Oh?"

"_Yes, discounts for… promiscuous girls."_

"Just get to it, Jet."

"_You can get it for free if you wear some 'fuck me' clothing and make Storm steal it while he's distracted, they've only got one layer of security here and that's cameras. It's old, probably not even decent megapixels on a camera; they wouldn't be able to get a clear shot. They have pistols and your whole array of mechanical tools. That's pretty much it."_

"Thank you!" she said with mock enthusiasm, closing the phone and opening up her wallet, wondering how much a sleazy outfit from the markets would cost her.


	16. Drown us from the Inside

**domi|note: **A little more information about Caleb's past. Can you guys tell me how I'm doing with him? I'm kind of nervous about his character because it's _so_ easy to cross the line from an 'okay' character to Gary-Stu.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **Undead009**, **Exploder**, **superechidna**, **Ficfan412**, **LordCooler**, **Metalshadow1909**, **The Guy in the Background** and **SmallSpek** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>True remorse is never just regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Sixteen  
>.<em>  
>"I can count on you win or lose, it's gonna drown us from inside. Save the escape, save the escape."<br>…_  
><em>Written by WelshScot<em>_

* * *

><p><em>Yesterday<em>

In the exact same room where the Nocturnes had been celebrating, Metal Knuckles was sitting on the main couch, scowling at a piece of yellow paper that was clutched in his hand. It wasn't what he was reading, well not entirely, but mostly he was angry at himself. He felt that he shouldn't have let Miles go back to the Black Arms, that he should've kept a closer eye on him. Thankfully, the young fox didn't run into Terri; but after seeing his broken, beaten body, the bionic handed man wondered if death would've been a better alternative.

"Some guardian I turned out to be," murmured MK, closing his eyes in self loathing. "I've been ignoring him for so long, to busy worrying 'bout some street gang. And when I do try to protect him, I become fucking complacent and let him wonder off on his own." He opened his eyes, the green orbs dimming with misery, as he asked himself, "Is this how I repay you,

Rosemary and Amadeus? Is this how I repay your friendship and kindness?"

Just then, the sound of approaching feet drew MK out of his moment of depression. Straightening himself upon on the couch, the man green eyes observed the approaching figures of Welshscot and Marine; one being as blank as an empty book while the other shone with excitement. They both stopped by the edge of the couch, their eyes fixed upon the gang leader.

Before Welsh could say anything, MK asked a question, his tone concerned, "How is he?"

"He's stable," replied Welsh, his voice calm and balanced. "His bones still look like smash plates, but ones that are glued back together. The cuts and bruises on his face will leave some scars, some more noticeable than others, but the worst damage is to the base of his tails. There's a seventy percent chance he'll never fly again and even then he won't be able to use his power for months."

MK lowered his head and raised a metal hand to rub his forehead, as if trying to erase his mind of the guilt he now felt. Seeing this, Welshscot sat down next to the ex-Guard and softy asked, "Hey, do you want to talk about it?"

MK lowered his hand and put on a hard face. "Thanks for the offer, Welsh-Doc, but that can wait till later." He quickly changed the subject, "Is there any way to help him heal faster?"

Before Welsh could reply, Marine threw herself into the conversation. "Aloe vera, mate. The raw stuff, not the fancy juice kind they sell in other countries, or the crap that looks like you've put mouldy pizza in a blender. We'd be needn' ta go ta the ol' Cat Face for some. Me and Welsh 'ere were gonna visit 'im now."

MK tensed at the mention of General Whisker's nickname. He looked down at the paper in his hand, and then offered it to the hybrid next to him, saying grimly, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. He wouldn't give you a ring for a pinball machine."

While Welsh took the paper, a knowing looking in his grey eyes, Marine put her hand upon her hips and huffed, "His goods may be over priced, but I'll be able ta sweet talk him for a bargain!"

The hybrid didn't listen, since the moment he read the first line his total attention had fallen upon this yellow note. As he read, his eyes darting from page to page (which flickered with a mixed amount of interest and disgust), the hybrid doctor muttered, "That explains why he went... I hope those guys don't mouth off about him... He always uses that colourless wire..."

But soon, his eyes widened in outrage, as he cursed, "Damn it! You're right, MK, no way will he give us any Aloe; even if we do have the money!" He looked up from the page at Marine, who was trying to read over his shoulder, and hurriedly said, "Okay, plan A is off. Go to Caleb, he knows what to do." Before the raccoon could ask or protest, Welsh explained, "Whiskers is on Eggman's payroll. He was the one who organised the shipments of robots that tore apart the cemetery. He won't be giving mutants any Aloe if he knows its value."

She gasped. "What! No way, I've known the ol' Cat Face for donkey's years? Where did you get that idea from?"

"From the last words of Blaze's mum," stated the hybrid, sombrely. "She apparently allowed Eggman to store his robots in her warehouses and was tasked with buying the cemetery land once it had been torn apart."

Saying Marine was shocked and horrified was an understatement. Indeed, after the information had sunken into her brain, she lunged at the paper; desperate to read more, to read the words of the Duchess's killer.

She failed miserably and would've tried again if Welsh hadn't quickly said, "Listen, Marine, I promise I'll give this to Blaze later. But right now we need to focus on Tails; he's more important right now." Marine was about to respond hotly, but stopped when she realised Welsh's point. Giving him a harsh glare, she turned around and headed back to Caleb. On the way, she bumped into Sonic who was uncharacteristically walking slowly, a dark, sad gloom hanging from his face.

Looking back at the letter, the hybrid soon continued to mutter, to state his feelings to TD's letter. "So he found out what he wanted to know... He let her live... And she taunted him? Threatened Tails? Damn, that kid must mean a lot to him; he's never lost his anger before. And then the Duke comes in... Ah, so it was an accident. TD must have felt like shit. Losing his anger and hurting an innocent? That goes against all of his standards..."

He continued on, reading about TD's emotional trip during after the Manor until Tails beating. Welsh was glad that TD had slaughtered all the bastards. They were the kind of dumb pricks that Welsh despised; pricks who judged others by their looks and genes. He was disappointed that the ringleader had escaped, though with a missing thumb, but he was glad that TD had put his priorities straight. But when he read about the rat Mobian, he outwardly cried, "Oh, you have got to be FUCKING _KIDDING _ME?"

The hybrid leapt to his feet, throwing TD's letter at MK as he did so, just as his phone ringing the 'Team Chaotix' song. He quickly answered it, and before he could say a word, CJ shouted, "Welshaldy! I just saw Ivan Pick walk past my car!"

A dark cloud fell over Welsh's face. Ivan Pick was a bastard that Welsh had known since high school; a cliché quarterback bully who hated Mutants because he wanted their powers. But that prick was dead, and had been for two years, meaning...

"Marsali is at it again, isn't she?"

The hybrid paused for a second, before replying in a dull, blank voice, "Or Darken Gaia. They're the only ones I know who are powerful enough to pull this off."

CJ didn't need to be an empath, which she was, to tell what Welshscot was feeling. But before she could say anything, he bluntly said goodbye and hung up on his closest friend.

MK knew that Marsali was a touchy subject. But he knew that Welsh liked to help other people with their problems, but the hybrid never liked it when someone tried to help him with his personal life. He used to be so open with his emotions, his face like an ever-changing book that showed his nature like a beacon in the night. But now he closed that book, hiding behind a blank mask of fake or forced emotions.

The gang leader was so deep in thought about the old Welshscot, that he didn't notice that the scaled arm man was nearing the exit. He heard him say, in a blank tone, "Give Blaze the letter when she comes asking for me. Caleb knows where I'm going, and if you need me then just call. I'll be at the Knotcorn garage."

MK stood up and called after Welsh, saying, "Can't the Iron Domain wait?"

"No," came the crisp response. "It's not just about stopping them from hounding me anymore. Quack had a look at the gun Fiona used and it had the Iron King's logo in-branded into the side of the trigger. It's in all of our interests to find out how he's making Mutant armour piercing weapons. Eggman doesn't need another weapon against us."

And with that, Welshscot left; leaving one bout of drama for another one. It was unclear what the future would hold, how Caleb would get the Rogues to steal the Aloe shipment and if Tails would ever recover, but one thing was for sure.

By the end of all this, he was gonna smell like hoe for a week.

* * *

><p><em>I Need a Dollar <em>by Aloe Blacc

* * *

><p>"You're not feeling <em>tired<em> are you Shadow? Big, strong hedgie like you?"

"Shut up."

Rouge pouted, steering her car in the direction of The Black Arms Garage. It would be better to get back to her apartment before the ghouls started coming out. She adjusted the rear-view mirror so that it would catch Shadow's expression. As always, the hedgehog seemed distant, thinking far more than he should have been, but then again, she'd been dumping a shitload of information on him in the last few weeks. She supposed his brooding was allowed… for now.

"You're so rude."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

_That's more like-_

"_Please _shut up."

The bat woman gasped as if she was offended, but smirked afterwards. Watching the streets of Crisis City start to become hazardous as young vandals tipped over garbage cans and idiot thugs cat-called her from the sidewalk, blatantly ignorant of the man in her passenger seat.

"Did I deal with this kind of behaviour towards you before?" he asked her.

"Why? You getting annoyed, Shads?" she teased.

"Yes," he admitted, staring at her blatantly now, but his posture still remained nonchalant. He had one elbow leaning on the window sill and his hand was holding up his head. The convertible had no roof at this time, so he was using his hand to shield his eyes, "You attract too much attention with your frivolous nature and revealing attire."

"Ah!" her smirked widened, "So you _have_ been checking me out! What do you think of my new boots, Sunshine? Wicked, aren't they?"

He scoffed, making a small pointing gesture so that she would turn right. She slowed down, noticing that the streets were getting significantly smaller. She didn't understand how Shadow could live in a dump like this. It was nothing like her flat back in New City.

"I hope your friends remember you after all the time that you've been spending with me. I'm surprised you even remember how to get back to Black Arms."

"Well, it is somewhat unforeseen, given what you have told me about my deteriorating memory."

"Well it seems fine now, so stop fussin' Shadow. There are some pretty hyped up rumours going about your home; tell me about this new room-mate of yours, I hear he's getting himself in some pretty hot water by associating with the pro-mutant medics."

"Oh, I don't know his first name. Silver calls him Snippy."

"What is he?"

"An asshole."

"No, I mean; what _species_ is he?"

"Fox. Brown. I believe I heard Silver saying something about him 'fucking up his emotions' but that could have just been him coming out of the closet." It was the way he said this with a completely straight face that made her laugh, finally turning into the garage. That was until the words finally sunk in and she stopped, killing the engine.

"'Fucking up his emotions' you say? Like… like an empath?"

"I don't know," he replied, exasperated.

"Do you think he's here?" It couldn't be… could it?

"Should be…"

"You wouldn't mind if I came in, would you?"

"Not like it would stop you."

She made her way up the stairs tentatively, examining her surroundings. She had never been above the garage before, and though she was surrounded by cheap shoddy furniture, everything seemed… _homey_ and comforting. She could understand why The Black Arms was always overcrowded now. But there was a sad air about the place today. Amy Rose was sitting on the couch between the Duchess Blaze and Knuckles. She and Knuckles used to speak all the time… all that stopped after the events of The Crimson Night. She saw him now, and he looked away as if he was ashamed to be associating with her.

She looked up and saw a head of white quills in what she assumed was the kitchen through the indoor balcony, moving about languidly, a smaller rabbit girl next to him. The Blue Blur had just come out of the bathroom, looking sadder than she had ever seen him. Then again… it had been a while, "Hey, Blue."

Sonic looked up, eyes widening when her saw her, "Rouge!" He paused for a second, speechless, "Um… Hey, Amy! Come over here."

The pink hedgehog looked up from the couch, and when her eyes landed on the bat, she scowled, getting up and stomping over to her. Her green eyes trained between her and Shadow, "What are _you_ doing here? _What_ have you been telling him?"

"Oh, this and that, you don't have to worry about it Rose."

Shadow looked taken aback by Amy's response. It didn't look like Miss Rose was ready to fill in the ebony hedgehog anytime soon, but by Shadow's expression she had a feeling they would have to tell him the truth eventually. There was no point in sheltering him like a child any longer, especially when it was starting to affect innocents.

"The _hell_ I don't!"

Rouge rolled her eyes, the look under her mascara-laden eyelashes was terrifying, "You haven't changed."

"Neither have you," Sonic said, smiling cautiously, but he still seemed a little sad. She didn't think it was about her appearance (because, let us admit, that would be kind of rude) but because of something that had happened beforehand.

"Well," she said, placing a hand on her hip, "as touching as this reunion maybe, I actually came up here to see someone else."

"If it's Tails, he's not here," Amy said, "you're going to have your Extreme Gear fixed somewhere else."

"The cutie-pie that handles the Gear downstairs? Turns out I'm not looking for him either. No, I was wondering if there was a brown fox around here by the name of Heartnet-"

"Someone asking for me?"

Rouge whirled around at the voice, sounding a _lot_ different from the last time she had heard it. She rushed forward and enveloped the surprised fox in a hug, almost running over the young raccoon next to him, "Callie!"

"Solaris! _Rouge!_ Hi!" he replied, hugging her back before stepping away and staring at her, she performed a little twirl for his amusement, she was only centimetres taller than his now, "Wow, you haven't changed."

She heard the white hedgehog mutter 'Callie?' in a confused manner.

"But _you_ have! What the hell happened to your voice? And your hair? Solaris, you're so much taller."

"It's called puberty," he rolled his eyes. And his attitude was still the same! She remembered Caleb when he was this scrawny (well… scrawni_er_) little twelve-year-old, snivelling, pathetic, sensitive and... If Truscott hadn't gotten to him, he'd probably still be the same, "How much time have you got on you?"

"Enough," she said, jerking her head towards the garage door. Once they were downstairs she looked him up and down, making him turn and circling her. He wasn't wearing anything flashy; he'd never been that kind of guy. He was wearing grey jeans and a red flannel, "Still as hopeless with fashion as you were before, aye?"

"We can't all be high class GUN agents like you."

"But you were well on your way, weren't you? What happened?" she asked, running her hand through his hair, "You're making me feel old. Solaris. How old was I when I met you?"

"Around eighteen. What are you now? Forty?" he smirked, receiving a playful bat on the arm.

"I _cannot_ believe this! What are you doing? I didn't think you would come back to Soleanna after The Crimson Night. How are you? Do you still… um, do whatever artsy thing you do?" Normally, she wouldn't be so forward, but meeting old friends like this always made her excited. She hadn't felt like this since she'd seen Shadow again, but was bitterly disappointed when she found out Shadow didn't remember her. But meeting Caleb again, knowing that he _remembered_ her, felt pretty damn good.

"One question at a time," he laughed, trying to bat her hands away from his hair. "Firstly, I don't even know what The Crimson Night _is._ I knew you were going to explain what it was when you got back to Downunda, but Truscott and I came here two years after you left."

"How _is_ Truscott? Man, we used to be _best_ friends. You guys were really close too!"

Caleb paused, blinking for a second before his eyes shifted away from hers, "Yeah… I don't know…"

She gasped, grasping his shoulders, wondering why his eyes wouldn't meet her own, "That's weird, and I was betting money that you'd be a couple by the time you turned fifteen!" The brown fox flushed and looked down, scratching the back of his head nervously. She narrowed her eyes, "Oh my God… did you two split? Oh Solaris, _please_ don't tell me you reverted back to your _'__hopeless' _crush on Barby Koala."

His mouth turned down in a sneer, his cheeks turning a shade redder, _"No!"_

"Good. That was a long shot anyway. Aww, you're still so cute!" she reached forward to ruffle his hair again. This was always the way it had been between them, treating him like a little brother. Now that she was twenty-two she felt like she had missed out on so much. His stupid little emphatic ability didn't work with her because Rouge didn't have a lot to hide. She wore her heart on her sleeve.

"Enough about me, what were you doing with Shadow… I thought he wasn't a GUN agent anymore?"

"Believe it or not, Kiddo, but he was a major part of my Crimson Night mission."

"Well then why are you still hanging around?" he asked, but it wasn't like he needed to ask, "You care for him!"

"So what if I do?" she asked defensively, "Besides… The only reason I'm back in his life again is because his involvement in his last mission is endangering all his friends. Why do you think the Babylon Rouges are here? It's got stuff to do with Shadow's past, but the thing is, he can't _remember _anything. That means that he can't protect anyone, even himself."

"Wow? Really… interesting… Okay," he said quietly, patting her shoulder, "actually, now that you're here, I wanted to ask you something. Word around The Underground says that a rogue GUN agent is on the loose."

Rouge's eyes widened and she twirled a finger around a stray lock of hair, "Alright… so my superiors _might_ have said something about keeping The Crimson Night strictly confidential."

"_Rouge!"_

"He's in danger!" she exclaimed. "And by being associated with him, so are you."

He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, I knew that." He sighed, "Okay, I just wanted to tell you that Team Chaotix are after you, so… be careful. They're three more disasters away from putting a bounty on your head, and if the Chaotix are after you, then the Destructix aren't far behind."

"Oh! And I thought _you_ might want to know that Ash Mongoose and Leilani Cesario are in town."

The fox widened his eyes, "Really?"

"Yeah, they were like, some of your only friends in Downunda GUN Academy, weren't they? Thought you might wanna catch up… well… her situation, I hear, is a little more complicated. But… I hear she's looking for your mentor anyway, so maybe she'll run into you."

"Thanks."

She looked at her watch, noticing that it was getting dark and she didn't want to deal with the morons that came out at this time of night. They embraced once again, and she found that she still couldn't get over how big he'd become. She ruffled his hair again, just for good measure before heading back to her car, "It's so good to see you happy and healthy, Caleb."

He bit his lip, eyes darting away from hers for a second, "Yeah. You too."

She paused as she was getting into her vehicle, watching him with suspicion, "You know… if there's anything you'd like to get off your chest, I'm here."

"Who's the empath again?" he asked, forming a false smile.

She narrowed her eyes, "Maybe you've been spending a little _too_ much time with your teacher. I'll see you around, Callie. And if you don't know where Truscott is, then I'll find-"

"Don't."

Rouge was already in the vehicle when she heard what _sounded_ like a demand, it was pathetic, and his voice sounded like it was going to crack. For a second she thought that he was going to burst into tears like the so many times he had in Downunda Academy, "What?"

"Just… _please._ Don't. I'll-" he looked a little conflicted and very sad, but he regained his composure until she couldn't see through his mask anymore. That was the thing about Caleb, once he knew that he couldn't read you, he felt vulnerable, less powerful, and therefore showed more emotion than he would have otherwise. Once he realised what he was doing, he'd revert back to a mask of cold steel, "I'll show you."

She released a shuddering sigh, trying to find any trace of emotion behind his cold blue eyes before she shrugged, "Just _because_ Callie."

"And if I do this for you, will you do a favour for me?"

"Depends."

Caleb came up to her car and leant against the door. It was a pose, she would admit, that looked rather fine on him. If _only_ he were as charming to his friends as the people he was trying to manipulate, "When Prower, the lead mechanic of this garage, wakes up, he's going to make a pretty out-there request of me, and I'm going to shoulder it off to Shadow. I need you to convince him to accept Tails' request."

"If you're anything like you were four years ago… Caleb, _how_ do you know what he's going to do?"

"I just know how some people work, Prower more than others because… because he reminds me of how I was, when I was twelve. Someone as innocent and honest as that kid is going to _change_ after this. It takes something monumental and sometimes… sometimes something _bad_ for people to change. For me, it was Truscott, for him, it's this beating. I can read him, anyone I can read, I can get…" he thought about the statement a little before chuckling a little, she saw warmth in his eyes that she hadn't seen in four years, "In fact, when I was younger the only people I could never read were Truscott-"

"-And yourself. That's probably why you just… _clicked._"

"We did _not-_"

"Good_bye,_ Heartnet!"

And with that, Rouge disappeared into the Crisis City night, leaving him a mix of conflicted feelings and memories that he'd rather not relive.


	17. A Hybrid's Sanity

**domi|note: **This chapter was written completely by **WelshScot**. Oh, and there are some more pictures on my DeviantART for anyone that's curious.

Thanks to **Angel-of-Energy**, **SmallSpek**, **Exploder**, **Undead009**, **Metalshadow1909**, **superechidna** and **The Guy in the Background**.

**WARNING:** Violence of the apple-juice induced insanity kind, blatant disregard for the proper use of the Hokey-Pokey, and absolute disfigurement of every bone in the right arm, resulting in 'Abuse Against Animals' coming after our asses with a 'Violence Against Hedgehogs' protocol.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Talking to yourself is only a sign of madness when you start answering back—A wise saying<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Seventeen  
>.<em>  
>"Tonight my head is spinning. I need something to pick me up. I've tried but nothing is working. I won't stop, I won't say I've had enough."<br>…_  
><em>_Break_ by Three Days Grace

* * *

><p>A . H y b r i d ' s . S a n i t y<p>

If there was one thing you could say about the Freedom Fighters, it was, despite their gun-hoe and people's choice reputation, that their HQ, the Knotcorn garage, was very discreet. In the Mobotropolis district, which was a collection of flats that were built on top of the old Knotcorn Park, you wouldn't have guessed that in a rundown gas station, a secret door lead to the sunken foundations of an old castle; which was rumoured to be the castle where the old Dukes of Soleanna once ruled from in ancient times. There was another passage that leads to a block of flats, which the FF used as the place where their customers would go to get their Gears tuned and fixed.

If you had other, more serious business with the vigilante gang, then you had to go through the abandoned gas station; just like Welshscot was doing. Having stepped over the low, empty window frame and pushed aside the heavy stack off shelves that covered the hidden door, the hybrid was now knocking onto the heavy iron door; which was painted white, like the wall it was set in, to camouflage the entrance from view.

After a minute's worth of tapping, Welsh stopped; deciding that the doorman must have gone for a leak. Not wanting to stay in a place that looked like it could collapse at any second, he bent down to the key hole; pulling out a small lock-pick from his black rucksack. Armed with his 'key', as long as it didn't break, the Medic set to work on the lock.

Welshscot had always had a natural skill at thievery, which did nothing to fight the Welsh stereotype, and it had served him well ever since the Massacre. Before he became a well known Medic, the red head had been forced to live off the streets. His dad, Owen Scottmen, had been killed, trapped in a burning building during the Massacre, and his mother, Marsali the Dragon-Scottmen, had ran off, taking all of the family money with her. He had spent three years on the streets, being turned away from one job from another because he was a half-Mutant, and he had only survived because of his skill at pick-pocketing. CJ had been whisked away to New Town by her mother, to be trained as a cop, so Welsh had been on his own for three years. Until he met Metal Knuckles...

He was drawn back to reality by the small click the lock made. Straightening up, pocketing his lock pick as he did, he grabbed the small catch on the heavy door and pulled hard opening the heavy door with ease. Welsh then began his journey to the Freedom Fighters' HQ; down a dark, black tunnel. He hated this route, having to blindly tread along the uneven, twisted passage. But knowing this was the safest way, since the Police might still be looking for him and the other Medics, he grit his teeth and carried on; remembering to duck at under the low ceiling at the halfway point of the tunnel that had claimed the heads of all the people who used this passageway for the first time.

Soon, after five more minutes of staggering through the pitch black tunnel, the hybrid reached the last iron door that lead to the home of the FF. Welsh would have been pleased that he was so close to a place where he could rest his feet, maybe grab a bite to eat and ask for needed help, if the passageway door wasn't already open; along with an unconscious Mobian, who was lying in the doorway.

His hero complex kicking in, he rushed to the unconscious goat, the hybrid's eyes watching a small, red lump that was shining on the goat's woolly scalp. He placed his fingers against the goat's neck and was relived to feel a pulse beating steadily. After propping the goat's unconscious body in the recovery position, Welshscot began to hurry silently into the Freedom Fighter's HQ, knowing that the guard's attackers were within.

It was hard to believe that these long, tall and wallpapered corridors, which floors were carpentered grey, were once the kind of corridor you would expect to find in a church. Unless Welsh had known of the history of this place, he would have never thought that these rooms and passageways were once lit by candles and heated by fires in the odd room or hall, which now had cheap, electric lights and hidden pipes that lead to flaky-paint radiators.

Having navigated from the hidden entrance in the west wing, which held living quarters, bathrooms and (on the top floor) an armoury, the hybrid soon found himself slipping through a pair of grand wooden doors into the great hall, aka the cafeteria and planning centre. Like any great hall, it was ridiculously large with a slopping ceiling and had thick, stone walls and floor. There were a number of tables on the right hand side, along with a small set-in the wall counter that lead to a cluttered kitchen. They were placed near an old-fashioned fireplace which sometimes crackled with life on a festive date. The left side had odd bits of furniture spread around that side of the hall, a couch there, and an armchair there, computers that lined the wall—their wires feeding from the hard-drives and into the obscure holes in the wall behind them.

But what caught Welsh's eye the most was the small haggle of people, who were split into two groups of a similar number, positioned right in the centre of the great hall. The groups were full of familiar faces, both infamous and famous, but the models of the guns they pointed at each other were all unbeknown to the hybrid. And even though the group closet to him had their backs turned, it wasn't hard to work out whom they were, especially the cliché motorcycle fetish and the green spikes of the leader. He wouldn't forget Scourge the Hedgehog, leader of the Suppression Squad, in a hurry.

Nor would the memory of the gun, that had managed to puncture his bullet proof scales, leave his memory... oh, and the woman who wielded it, the bitchy Fiona Fox. Welshscot wasn't usually a person who held a grudge—Hell, Lleidr had put him in traction and he didn't give a monkey's ass. But for people like them, he made a painful exception.

Moving his grey orbs to friendlier faces, he began to examine the group furthest away from him; starting with the ring leader of the FF, Sally Acorn. Wearing a beige undershirt, open blue jacket and blue trousers, the ex-girlfriend of Sonic the Hedgehog was pointing a silver Beretta 92S at the smirking face of the green Hedgehog. She and her other comrades, the top lieutenants of the FF, were held in a gunpoint stalemate against the SS.

These people included their main mechanic, Rotor the Walrus, the FF's married couple, the southern accented Bunnie Rabbot and her French coyote husband Antoine, and finally their hacker, Nicole the Lynx; best friend of Sally and former psychiatric patient of the same hybrid who was hovering by the doors of the great hall.

In fact it was because of her, that single job the FF had ever hired him for, which had made him the sworn enemy of the Iron Domain; the biggest whore house in the city. Basically, about two or three years ago; the Iron Queen, a former scientist of MeteoTech, had kidnapped Nicolle as a favour for Eggman. Once that whore had gotten her mitts on the FF hacker, the Iron Queen did the same thing she did to all of the poor girls who were either kidnapped or forced off the streets. She injected mind control nanites, ones she had created while working for Eggman, and tried to turn her into a sex slave.

Fortunately, the FF managed to rescue her before she got subjected to too much foreplay. But because her mind was being addled by the nanites, which none yet knew about, they FF had to resort to Welshscot's therapeutic skills. And even after he found out about the nanites and a used a program that could turn his phone into an Electronic Disruptor, which destroyed the nanites instantly, the Medic still had to guide her through the disturbing images and suggestions the little robots had placed in her brain. So long term short, Welsh cured Nicolle and figured out the secret of the Iron Domain's success. So the Iron Queen and her husband, a gunsmith known as the Iron King, have made it their mission ever since to kill the hybrid for messing with their plans and business.

But back to here and now, Welshscot began to reach for his hipflask of Scotch; which he had refilled during his stay at the Black Arms. He didn't pay attention to what they were saying, which to be frank was just a few hisses and curses thrown from one group to the other, but the hybrid knew that the tension would break and blood and bullets would splatter the floors.

Raising the brown flask to his lips, opening it with his thumb as he did so, Welshscot couldn't have possible known, that far away in the Black Arms Garage at that very moment, Jet was tearing through his bags, scowling. He stood up and turned to Storm, to whom he shouted at, screeching, "Strom! Have you seen my hipflask?"

The albatross shook his head, "Nope, ain't seen it since we got 'ere. Why do want it, Boss?"

"After me and Sonic went for race and our boards broke, I flew off into an alley and found a bottle of Aloe Vera. I've always liked the stuff, but the bottle looked dirty, so I put it in my flask..." He stopped, as something that was poking out under his bed caught his eye. With a cry of triumph, the hawk dived for it, whilst shouting excitedly, "Bingo! If what Snippy said is true, then this baby is gonna get us some big money!" After snatching it from its hiding place, Jet stood up, pulled out the stopper and took and deep, long sniff...which changed his joy to surprise, and then swiftly anger.

He turned to Strom, turning the flask upside down whilst he did so, and growled, "IT'S BLOODY EMPTY! SOMEBODY STOLE OUR BIG BREAK! WE COULD'VE USED THAT MONEY TO HELP DESTROY METAL SONIC!" But then a small detail rose to the surface of his mind. "Hang on...When I filled my flask, it was already half full. I hadn't used my hip flask for anything till now. So...did I use someone else's?"

That seems to be the case, as Welshscot's eyes widened as he felt the mixed burning and soothing sensation trickle down his throat. He dropped the hipflask, his entire body shaking violently as the power of his Whiskey intermingled with that of Aloe Vera. His eyes began to shift in and out of focus; his scales seemed to ripple with energy as it travelled from his shoulder to the ends of his finger tips.

While a chemical storm ragged inside the cells and genes of the hybrid, Scourge himself roared with laughter as something Sally had said. "HA, you think because me and Fiona were the only ones to win our races that will not get to the final races? I don't know if that's just funny or pathetic."

Fiona, who was leering at Sally while pointing her shotgun directly at the Squirrel's face, cackled, "Yea, I mean, the only ones from your group who got through was you, Princess, and your bionic bunny bitch, Miss Techno Whore..." Nicole, who was armed with a Glock, growled at the bitchy vixen. "...and some Norwegian forensic; who looks like he sleeps in a freezer." She skimmed the group of Freedom Fighters, with fake interest, and asked, "Where is he, anyway? That arsehole almost made me lost my race."

"Like we'd tell you, you traitorous tart," growled Bunnie; who was keeping her Revolver aimed at the said whore. Her coyote husband, armed with Gauge 12 shotgun, snarled in unison with his wife. Rotor, who was handling a Beretta similar to Sally's, shot a hateful look at the vixen before returning his eyes to three other thugs that made up the other members of the SS.

Scourge, whose sneer became more pronounce, addressed Bunnie, in a gruff, taunting tone, "Look who's talking, Buns. You weren't exactly faithful when Patch came on the scene."

The southern rabbit's grip tightened. "Can it, M—"

"TEIMLWCH Y PWER Y GYMRAEG!"

The Freedom Fighters and the Suppression Squad where all taken completely by surprise. I mean, who'd expect a scaled right arm ginger to leap—literally leap, like a frog—right in the middle of the group of punks. They all scattered away, all except for Scourge. Before he could even react to this bizarre entrance, he felt a scaled hand grip his left shoulder tightly. Turning sharply, the green hedgehog's dark blue eyes laid upon a disturbing sight. Welshscot's grey eyes were literally rolling in their sockets, his ginger hair (even the stubble on his chin) was charged and electrified and a crazy, demented grin was wide across the hybrid's face.

"Bonjou, Fleo," squealed the Medic in Creole; his voice high pitched and squeaky. Before Scourge could even respond, Welshscot raised his head to the ceiling and began to sing, "Put your left arm in..."

"...Put your left arm OUT!" Without warning, the hybrid grabbed the green hedgehog's arm with his other hand and pulled. The other SS and the FF could only cringe as they heard the combined sounds of Scourge's screams and the sickening, popping sound of his arm being dislocated. But it didn't stop there.

"IN, OUT, IN, OUT..." Even Sally had to admit, she felt a twinge of sympathy for the black jacket wearing speeder. As the crazed Medic cried, 'in', he relocated Scourge's arm and then he dislocated it again on 'out'. The sickening pops as the limb was taken and placed back in it socket was enough to make anyone puke.

"SHAKE- IT ALL- ABOUT..." His scaled hand released his shoulder...Only to strike the upper-arm, the elbow joint and then finally the forearm; shattering every bone in his already dislocated arm. Pain was not enough to describe what Scourge was going through. Not even agony was the word to detail the anguish that was in his screams. All the cause of all this was just putting his hands together and dancing on the spot, singing dreamily, "You do the Hokey Cokey and you TURN AROUND!" Welshscot then spun on the spot, unleashing a left hook that made Scourge spin around with the hybrid; still yelling in utter pain. And to cap it all, Welsh performed the lowest of blows.

As he slowed down, he raised his left foot into the air and, while still slowly spinning on one foot, sang, "THAT'S WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!" With that, he sprang into the air, from standing on one foot, and, using that same foot, brought his heel straight into the crotch of the green Hedgehog. His screams now used up, all Scourge could do is collapse to the floor; like a puppet cut from his strings. Anyone else would have fallen unconscious, but the green speeder still had some pride, both in his soul and between his legs, so he just moaned quietly...but with dignity.

Anyway, Welshscot managed to land back onto his feet; his grinning face scaring all who looked upon it. The Freedom Fighters, though they knew the man was a friend, still backed away; leaving Fiona and the other three gangsters in the hands of the insane hybrid.

Straightening his legs and priming his elbows so they pointed at the stomachs of the two punks behind him, Welshscot began to sing again; a clear, crystal voice that was wrought with giddiness. "OH, THE HOKEY COKEY!" He then charged backwards, elbowing the Mobian gangsters with the force of a sledgehammer. Only one of them managed to stand, but only just, while the other just flopped to the floor; moaning in pain.

Fiona, seeing what was coming, leapt back as she heard, "OH, THE HOKEY COKEY!" She had left the guy beside her, a heavily muscled Mobian Wesel who looked like he could lift a car without breaking a sweat, to accept both of Welsh fists that sank into the Wesel's six-pack. Though he managed to stay on his feet, the muscle bound Wesel was certainly winded by the attack.

As he tried to catch his breath, the Medic charged backwards again, singing once more, "OH, THE HOKEY COKEY!" Since the one who had endured the blow had taken a leaf out of Fiona's book, the one who was left earned a nice set of broken teeth as an elbow pummelled the guy to sleepy-bye land.

Though wounded, the last two punk's eyes were full of humiliated rage. As one, they both charged for the Medic; who had suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the beat, I mean fighting, ground. As a puny fist was raised on one side, while one the size of a car engine were sent flying for his head...the hybrid suddenly sang, "KNEES BENT..." And with that simple movement, both blows skimmed his red hair. It was no contest; the Mobian Wesel's fist easily broke the other punk's and caused him to fly through the air and land on top of his fellow.

"ARMS STRETCHED..." The Wesel yelped in pain, as two fists punched the exact same spot at last time. He staggered backwards; clutching his stomach as if would fall out if he ever released it, as the crazy eyed man skipped in for the kill. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, Fiona had finally come to her senses. All she needed was her gun, her special gun, and this freak would be down on the ground; his head splurging blood as it flew through the air.

And as her furry fingers cured around the gun's handle, Welshscot delivered the final blows upon the heavy weight Mobian. "RA—" The Medic punched the Wesel right in the forehead. And as he raised his arm to the rising bruise on his face, Welshscot, using his scaled arm, unleashed a sharp jab onto the soften spot on the Wesel's stomach. This was all he could take. With a feeble yelp, the Mobian's eyes rolled back into his skull and he crashed upon the stone floor of the great hall.

Fiona, seeing her chance, quickly lined her sight with the Medic's head and—

"RA!"

Without warning, in a spurt of blinding speed and agility, the red head suddenly appeared right before the vixen. Before she could even look confused, Welshscot applied the blow that had finished her boyfriend. As if the vibrations had travelled up from where she had been hit to her paws, her gun flew into the air. And while Fiona fell to the floor, crying in pain and agony, Welsh turned around to face the Freedom Fighters (who had backed away to the canteen side of the hall), scratched his chin and then, as if an afterthought, stretched his arm back. Fiona's gun fell straight into his hand, as if caught by a magnet.

With the gun swinging by his side, the hybrid said, in overly acted, disappointed voice, "Hmph, some people just can't stand a simple sing-a-long." He then threw the gun back up in the air and turned around, popping his knuckles and asked, in the same voice as before, "Alright, now let the fight begin!" He blinked, his disjointed eyes sweeping across the beaten gangsters as if seeing them for the first time. He then shrugged. "Strange, it seems they've beaten themselves up. They could've just said, save all this blooming fuss." And then, with pure instincts, he snatched the falling gun from out of the air; just before it collided with his head. The Freedom Fighters, who were giving each other nervous glances as they started at the crazy Medic, began to wonder if this scene was funny or just plain disturbing.

Next second, Welshscot was right in front of them; beaming like a giddy school kid. Having managed to place the Fiona's gun on a nearby table in the few seconds that had passed, the Medic used both his hands to grasp Nicole's hands and shake them in greeting, saying cheerfully, "Hello, Nicole!" He then did the same for Sally, "Salutations, Sally! Then so-on as so forth: "Howdy, Bunnie! Bonjour, Antoine! 0100100001000101, Rotor!"

While shrugging off the pain that Welsh had caused when he shook her hands, Sally asked/demand, "Welshscot, what the hell is wrong with you!"

"That is an excellent question," agreed the Medic; who was addressing Antoine's shoe. "The answer will need complete and professional analysis." He then reached round behind his back with his left arm, pulled his hipflask from his belt and then threw it to his right hand that was hovering before his face. With the brown flask in hand, he took a small sniff, muttering, "Hmm, Whiskey..." His crazed eyes went back into his skull as he took another sniff. "ALOE VERA! Damn, we could've used that! But the culprit...?" He then suddenly licked the leather of the hipflask, which completely grossed the FF out. After a brief pause, in which he licked his lips as if savouring the flavour, Welsh suddenly jumped into the air, shouting, "JETTISON Q. HAWKINGTON, YOU LITTLE PARROT! YOU SPIKED MY DRINK; THIS MEANS MIND RAPE!" The FF didn't even begin to wonder who this 'Jettison' was. They just watched the Medic as he sailed through the air until he landed right next to the wine rack near the food counter.

Fearing the worst, the vigilante Lieutenants ran over to Welshscot; who was standing on one leg, muttering something about 'tongues'. Nicole was the first to ask one of the many questions that were flying through all their heads. "Welshscot, what are you doing here?"

In response, the hybrid hopped around on one leg to face her and the others. With his eyes popping like mad, he yelled, "Nicole, I can't believe you're letting me get tentacle raped! Is this how you repay me for helping you out when they were after you?" Everyone couldn't think of a thing to say to that. Welsh, before two years ago, had sometimes been an over the top funny guy, and ever since two years ago he's been as blank as a book (though he still kept his smart-aleck humour). But seeing him like this, crazed as a lunatic, was something that scared them to the bone.

The hybrid then suddenly flipped into the air, landing right in front of the wine rack with a wacky sense of grace and balance. As he absent mind idly began to pull out bottles, he began to spout words in a garbled fashion.

"I came here because I needed a hand for a whore. Per hour is in the cast and might lose his tricktionary unless I say 'Allo. Prentis is on the case with the lipsticks! Oh, by the way, apple is sleeping with the Kipper and the Frittata; trashed the coffee with their bots! And the dancers of Thriller are strutting round the block!" He stopped and stood up, a bottle of Caribbean rum in his hand. As the FF watched, he raised the bottle...and smashed it over his head. Antoine turned to Nicole and muttered, "Is dis ze same man who brought you back to sanity?"

Totally unfazed by the blow, the hybrid then said, "Ok, mwen isit la paske..." He stopped, realising from the FF's confused faces that he was talking in Creole. He bent down again, sighed, "Mwen espere sa a ap travay," and pulled out an Oxford Red; which he used to brain himself once more.

As the red wine dripped down his skin, Welshscot shivered and spat, "God damn English wine." He then looked up at the totally confused faces of the vigilante gang, and began to explain, "Sorry about that, chaps." He clenched his teeth his anger, furious that he was so desperate that he had to use that damn accent, but continued on all the same.

"Now, to explain my current state of condition, good stuff. As you all should know, Aloe Vera is a medical drug that can amplify a Mutant's power tenfold. Now, what many people don't know is that Aloe was once the main source of food for the old creatures that used to live in the old forests and Wisp Marshes. Because they were seen more in the marshes, they were called Wisps. These creatures are believed, according to Cult of Argus legends, to have appeared at the same time as Aloe Vera; which can be dated back eight-hundred years ago..."

The FF, who had been hanging on every word, were surprised, when Welshscot suddenly hung his head; snoring like a log. Wanting to hear more, they quickly found another bottle of wine and smashed it over the hybrid's head. He immediately shot up and resumed his explanation.

"Anyway, some people believed that one of the causes of the Mutant Gene is because back in the day, people used to catch Wisps and ground them up into a powder drug, called Hyper Go On; or HGO for short. When people took some of it, depending on its colour, it caused not only a state of ecstasy, but it actually gave the user powers for a short time. Some scientists believe that is why there's a split in mutant berserkers, or hyper-activates. They think that some Mutants, whose ancestors drunk too much Aloe Vera, may have a power boost when they eat something plant based; like caffeine or non-artificial food colourings. But if their ancestor had too much HGO, which is very rare since Eggman tore up the forest and built over the Wisp Marshes (so Wisps are near extinct), get power reactions off fluids and liquids; like alcohol."

"So, back to the main point, if you cross Aloe with a power trigger, like Whiskey, Mutant powers are boost to the point of it being limitless. However..." He flashed a wide, cheesy grin, as blood began to drip from his nose. "Combine too much, or too little, of either and the Mutant's heartbeat might spiral out of control. So, unless you can get me some Welsh Wine, to balance out the amount of alcohol, I'll die in about... One and a half minutes?"

Nicole gasped in horror while Bunnie and Sally cried, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US SOONER!" Rotor, upon hearing the news, dived towards the rack with Antoine and began to feverishly search for Welsh wine.

"Hey, cough, we're still here you know!"

The Freedom Fighters and the hyped up Medic, whose face was slowly beginning to pale, had almost forgotten about the Suppression Squad. Too injured to do nothing but stand, Scourge glared daggers at the paling Medic; whilst being supported by his girlfriend.

The hybrid, his eyes still unfocused, swivelled round to the green speeder. He began to move forwards, but tripped up on his own feet. Narrowly missing the table legs, the Medic rolled along the stone floor towards the SS; who would be raising eye brows if they had the strength to do it. As he got closer, he sprang from the roll and landed on his feet in a small victory pose; flexing his scaled arm as if he won a marathon.

Fiona scowled at Welsh and spat, "You son of a bitch..."

Welsh shook his head in disappointment, "That's not an insult, that's fact." He grinned, until he felt his heart tighten. His breathing became harder and harder—

"Found some!" Antoine rose from his knees; a bottle of Glyndwr held triumphantly in his hand. With no time to waste, Nicole leaned over and grabbed it right out of the French man's hand and threw it at Welshscot. As the greenish bottle spun threw the air, the FF held their breaths as it began to fall towards the ground. It almost landed upon the stone floor, but Welsh spun round and, using the last of the power-up state the Aloe and Whiskey had given him, managed to catch the wine with his left foot.

Smiling triumphantly, he flicked the bottle into his right hand. Whilst pulling out the stopper with his other hand, Welsh managed to shine a smirk at the SS; who were staring at him, wearily. As the stopper came off, the hybrid wheezed, "Now, this is what happens when you break into someone's home, without the permission to break in beforehand if there's nobody home."

And with only a few seconds to spare, Welshscot raised the bottle to his lips and poured the burning, bitter sweet liquid down his throat. The effect was instantaneous. His skin turned from pale back to its normal, healthy colour. His eyes soon shifted back into place and his face turned from a giddy grin back to his controlled, emotionless face.

The SS managed to utter a sigh of relief...before wandering why the Medic's cheeks were beginning to bulge. Next second, Welshscot opened his mouth and jets of bright, burning flames began to surge from his lips like a dragon.

Scourge and Fiona couldn't have been more embarrassed. When word got out that they had been beaten to a pulp by a hyperactive doctor, whilst singing the Hokey Cokey, and then that they ran from the same man, whilst he blew flames like a flamethrower, the SS were gonna be a laughing stock. And as they ran, with the little strength they had, back through the passageway and out of the abandoned gas station, Scourge looked at his broken, lump of an arm and vowed, "I'll get you back for this, Welshaldy! I swear to Solaris that I'll find you one day and beat the living crap out of you!"

Back in the great hall, Welshscot began to rub his head; which was aching like little bombs had gone off inside of his skull. He headed straight for the empty armchair by the fireplace; whilst the FF followed him from a distance, not sure if he was truly sane yet. As he sank into the greying cushions of the surprisingly comfy armchair, he looked at the empty fire place. Using the very last drop of the Welsh wine within him, he spat a small fireball into the fire place, which soon roared into life.

As his eyes began to slowly close, he heard a small cough from behind the chair. He craned round to look at the Freedom Fighters, his body creaking with fatigue.

Sally, with a weary look in her eye, tentatively inquired, "Welshscot, are you ok?"

His respond was curt and blunt. "I feel like cachu. My limbs feel like lead and I have the mother of all hangovers." Keeping his eyes upon the dancing flames in the grate, he asked, "Is Hjalmar here?"

Bunnie, who was now certain that the Medic was in his right mind, walked round the armchair to the sofa opposite it and sat down, while saying, "Yep, Tid's 'ere alright. He went out for some air, right before those punks barged in."

"Why were they here in the first place," asked Welsh, in the same emotionless tone.

"They were just trying to scare us," answered Nicole; who joined Bunnie on the sofa along with Antoine and Rotor. "They were pissed about the fact that only Scourge and Fiona got into the next round. Heck, Fiona only managed to scrape third place because Hjalmar stopped her from knocking me off my gear, by leaping of a rail and smacking the bitch in the head with the backend of his Gear." The hacker's face then became concerned, as she watched the Medic's blank face which didn't even cringe with pain. "Hey, Welsh, are you ok? Even when you were in pain in the past, you never keep your face this blank and emotionless. It's not like you..."

The hybrid seemed not to have hered the lynx. Shifting his grey eyes to Rotor, he nodded his head towards Fiona's gun, which was still on a table. "Rotor, could you analyze that gun? I need to know how it can puncture Mutant Armour."

Sally, who was now standing in front of the Medic with her arms folded, asked, "Look, Welshscot, you still haven't explained why your here. And how could you know if that gun can pierce Mutant Armour?"

"Because I was on the receiving end; which resulted in my scaled arm being filled with lead." Before they could gasp or ask any more questions, the hybrid quickly stated, "Look, my head is hurting like hell, I've just embarrassed myself with that little stunt I pulled and my body needs to rest after that overdose. I promise I'll explain everything after a short nap. Now good night and have a happy New Year..." And with that, he closed his eyes and a loud sleep to wash over him; leaving the FF to look confused and bemused.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note:<strong> If you guys are awesome with the reviews, I might upload the next one on Friday.


	18. Beautiful Dangerous

**domi|note: **I think I'm introducing one of the last plot-necessary OC's to the story, although she doesn't have a major role. There's a picture of her on my DeviantART page, I will post a link on my profile later.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **superechidna**, **Undead009**, **Metalshadow1909**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek** and **DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>If you're going to be two-faced at least make one of them pretty. ~Marilyn Monroe<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Eighteen  
>.<em>  
>"Now we're on this planet. I'm in love with all your danger, danger. We can live forever. I can be your favourite angel, angel. Beautiful. Dangerous."<br>…_  
><em>_Sidewalks _by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>"Pachacamac? Seriously guys, everyone knows the password. You might wanna change it before someone else finds out what it is."<p>

"Actually Knuckles, no one undesirable has found out about it yet."

The echidna laughed, crossing his arms over his chest, "How do you think The Babylon Rogues found out about it?"

Metal Knuckles, or Zackary Angel, as he had been formerly, and still by some, known as, roved over the echidna with suspicion before opening the passageway that led to the underground compartments of the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre, "I assume the empath would have told them so that they could deliver something to Miles. Didn't he?"

Knuckles shook his head, "No. They are professional thieves, and even if they seem dense at times, all of them have advanced stealth skills, knowledge of security and intel acquirement to match. I have _no_ idea why Tails thought it would be an awesome idea to let them live with us. Jet found out about the password by himself."

Zackary smiled, "Still as intuitive as ever."

"Apparently, not enough so." Knuckles blinked, watching as the trees around them gave way to passageways of metal and distant light, his violet eyes flickered for a second, "To think, you guys have been living here ever since The Massacre, and I couldn't trace _anyone._"

"We're sorry," the human murmured, clapping Knuckles on the back, "we thought you and your family would have been safer away from us, especially with all that nonsense concerning The Fallen Angel. Your family were in incredible danger after that… how is your father?"

Knuckles let out a huge, deep sigh, "At the moment? He's stable… but the price is killing me."

"We really need to get him out of that hospital, Knuckles, _more_ than we need something to turn the tides of this war."

Knuckles narrowed his eyes, "You realise that if I _abandon_ my duties as a Guardian the entire mutant populace goes to hell anyway? Which is exactly what Eggman wants?"

"Oh please, you haven't been able to find The Master Emerald in years, and you've only found three of the chaos emeralds."

"GUN holds the green one for safe keeping, and Eggman holds the rest," Knuckles sighed sadly, "Well… we should be _thankful_ to The Fallen Angel from stealing the four from his grasp…" he growled, "but if he hadn't completely detonated The Base and everything around it, my father would still be completely healthy."

"Enough about that…" Zackary warned, "If this place really is as unsafe as you've led me to believe we should still be cautious about how we act and what we speak about."

"Is that…?" Knuckles barely had time to react before he was tackled in a bone crushing hug.

"Knuckles!" the pink echidna wailed.

"Julie!"

He swung her around and then put her down, examining her and then trying to remember the last time he'd last seen the female echidna. Memories flashed of a girl that was just as competitive with soccer and basketball as the rest of the boys, joining them and proving that she was just as capable as the rest of them. Now she was a well developed young lady, and he couldn't believe how much time he'd missed.

She enveloped him in another hug, and before he knew it she was crying into his shoulder absolutely bawling her eyes out.

"D'aww, ain't that sweet?" Metal Knuckles teased, undeterred by Julie at all when she decided to give him the finger.

"I can't believe you're here!"

"Well yeah," Knuckles said, "at first I was just going to come to visit Tails, but then Sonic explained everything about you guys going up against the Suppression Squad. Do you guys know what's up with Sonic? He hasn't been the same since he came back from this place."

"Unfortunately, we have no idea," Julie-Su declared, drying her tears, "but you can see Tails! And we can catch up! Tikal and Chaos should be in the hospital wing as well."

"How is the little guy? What in Chaos' name happened to him?"

"The son of a guy that was killed in the Violet Manor knew about Silver and Tails being friends, so he and a gang of miscreants almost beat him to death trying to get revenge."

Knuckles snarled, shaking his fists, "Why didn't anyone go after those stupid punks?"

"They did," Zackary replied solemnly, "and now they're dead."

The echidna's eyes widened in shock, "You killed them?"

The human shook his head, "No. Tails Doll did. He got to every single one except the ring leader."

"Why isn't everyone after him? Wait a second; what does the Tails Doll have to do with any of this?"

He felt Julie-Su's hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down, "There are more important things to handle right now, like getting Tails better."

"Exactly what happened to him?"

"You're better of speaking to a medic instead of me."

"Oh, alright. Could you take me to Tikal?"

They wound their way through some more corridors before they made their way into the room called 'Sick Bay' where Tails was reading a book propped out in front of him with a pair of glasses slipping down his nose. He looked up slowly, a wide grin spreading across his face when he noticed Knuckles. Tikal was next to Tails, checking the fluids she was injecting into Tails' bloodstream. When she noticed Knuckle's standing there, she smiled cheerily and ran over to hug him in the same way that Julie-Su did, granted she was a lot gentler than her pink-furred friend.

"Hi Knuckles!" the echidna saw the fox try to move his hands, but decided against it and instead settled for a smile. He looked so happy that Knuckles almost didn't notice the prominent scars that now marred Tails' face. Sonic had mentioned something about Tails not being able to open his left eye, but it seemed that he could do it now. He skimmed over the other injuries, not wanting Tails to feel uncomfortable while he quenched his curiosity, "You didn't bring my Gear log with you, did you?"

The echidna shook his head, "Sorry. No. I just wanted to visit and make sure that you were alright, hmm? You seem okay for what you've just been through."

Tails' eyes misted over a little bit and Julie-Su gave him a not-so-discreet kick to the shin.

"Man, I wish there was something that I could do."

"There is," he said, "you can send over my Gear log."

"Well, anything that will help you get better. _Not_ put you in enough of a state to cause mental breakdown."

The fox's eyes widened, "You mean that there's enough bad business going on at The Garage to cause a mental breakdown?"

Julie-Su and Tikal rolled their eyes, "You haven't changed," said the pink echidna.

"No! No. We're taking care of everything, don't worry. Jet, his friends and Heartnet are finally pulling in their earnings so The Black Arms is fine."

Tails deflated, sighing in relief, "Thank goodness."

"I'll meet up with you in a bit, alright Tails? Tikal, I need to speak with you." They left Julie-Su with Metal Knuckles and Tails while Knuckles dragged the hippie medic outside.

"Knuckles, Knuckles, is this about Tails' recovery? Because Welshscot's already sent his apprentice to go and get aloe vera and-" she rambled, but Knuckles silenced her by holding up a finger. And then he gave her a shocked and disbelieving look.

"Really? Aloe? Isn't that illegal? Wait- Back to my original topic, I wanted to ask if you have the facilities for long term care."

The medic echidna looked back at him with woeful blue eyes, "Is this about your father?" He tapped his nose with the pad of his thumb, she nodded, "Alright, well… normally we wouldn't be able to. But Locke is like a second father to me, so yes. You're lucky your father's got dormant mutant gene, or else the doctors would have detected it and killed him. So, how many rings for your hospital bill…?"

Knuckles scratched the back of his head, biting his lip nervously, "Well see… here's the thing…"

* * *

><p><em>You think I ain't worth a dollar, but I feel like a Millionaire <em>by Queens of the Stone Age

* * *

><p>"<em>How are we lookin', Wave?"<em> Jet's voice was a static embodiment as she brought up the holograms and portable computer that could be conjured up from her red pendant. The disguised jewellery around her neck was actually a super computer, the likes and designs something the modern world had never seen before. It was a piece of Babylonian technology she had received from all the mechanics in her family it had been passed through, their acquired knowledge sitting comfortably beneath her clavicle.

As it turns out, this is not where the voice was coming from. Her leader's voice was filtering in through her communication ear peace as she worked continuously, on dismantling the image codes and re-routing the signals moving through the camera system of the garage Jet had sent her to. Storm was next to her, making adjustments to his rented board so that it would move in silently. She trusted Jet and Storm to make their own miniscule adjustments to their gear; after all, it was _their_ riding preference. She was only involved in their major changes and when something was not working properly.

"I've almost got it," she replied, all she had to do was digitally scramble the circuitry, maybe infect the system with a virus or two and- Alakazam! They now had free reign. She turned to the albatross, who was now waiting patiently for her to commence the plan, "Storm, do you have the knock-out gas ready and waiting?"

"It's been set in ma board to go off in 'bout ten minutes, do ya need a little more time?"

She shook her head. A little euphoria was still pumping through her system from Heartnet's earlier manipulation and it was because of this that she noticed how different Storm acted during missions compared to how he was at every other moment of the day. Actually, they all acted a little different when there was something worth stealing on the line. It was an element of her team that made her proud to be a Babylon Rogue; they were ready to put away petty disputes in order to work properly.

"I'll be fine."

"Ready to go?"

She slashed her fingers against the holographic green data circuitry in front of her as if they were claws slashing through the garage's horrible firewalls. She saw the smirk on Storm's features when a huge 'SYSTEM OVERRIDE' flashed across her screen, mirroring the gleeful expression with one of her own before she set up her board and closed the screens of her holographic pendant, making it assume it's position as a normal piece of jewellery. She pulled at her jeans, wondering if she had bought them a size too small.

"They're fine."

Jet appeared next to her, and she stood to face him twirling around playfully so that she could inspect his outfit, "Very nice, how are the camera's?"

"M.I.A."

"And where's Storm?"

"He's over the hill somewhere; he's set to come in ten minutes."

The hawk nodded, fiddling around with his watch, "Okay, I'll set mine for eight, you set yours for five. You know, we wouldn't have to do this if I'd had that bloody bottle of aloe."

Ignoring him, she did as she was told before he pointed to the entrance of the garage. She sent one final glance to Storm whose silhouette was black against the navy blue of the Soleanna night and then walked in. She was dressed today, in a flannel (which she had borrowed from Jet) that had been tied to expose her midriff, jean short-shorts and belted black ankle boots with five inch heels. In all honesty, she had only paid for the shoes because… well because they were shoes, and they were pretty damn hot.

She saw that as soon as she entered the garage heads turned and voices turned silent. She knew the kind of women that entered these garages, all three of them; there were the posers, ladies that liked to hang around men and flirt to get discounts on their broken cars, there were athletes, Extreme Gear/car racing/insert-sport-here type of gals that _actually_ needed help, and then there were fellow mechanics like herself, who were often discouraged and mocked because they knew a thing or two about what they were doing.

She'd been told that she could go for the first option, right? She'd been mistaken for a ditzy broad before which was kind of flattering, and kind of not at the same time. When she thought 'ditzy' she thought of Pinkie and her little flower-smelling rabbit friend. She considered herself more like The Princess; Blaze the cat, intelligent and pretty at the same time. She'd also been told countless times by men before that her image was fantastic until she opened her mouth. Countless ex-boyfriends had always said to their friends behind her back, 'Rockin' body, snarky personality'. She'd always thought it better than those girls with _no_ personality, but it was still kind of hurtful all the same, so she'd sworn off boys until she could find someone that could put up with her and love her all the same. Wave was kind of afraid that's all she would ever be; a pretty package, like Shadow or Heartnet, with a bitterness behind all that façade that no one wanted to look behind.

She was knocked out of her thoughts when the general chatter of the garage started to return to what it had been before she entered. She smiled a little, pushing her bangs to one side as she strutted over to the counter. This place was like The Black Arms except far less impressive, it's just that Tails' workshop didn't have any radiator units at this current point of time.

"What can I do for ya, Darlin'?" the shopkeeper asked, eyes smoothing, not-so-discretely over her chest. She got out the directions she used to head to Mystic Ruins and pretended to stare at the paper as if the scrap held a question that she couldn't answer.

"Ahm lookin' for something called a… a 'Radiator Unit'." She said the word slowly, as if she couldn't really comprehend the part, even if she really _could_ have explained how one was made, how it worked and what materials would be perfect for constructing one without even pausing.

"Who it be for?" the Mobian asking her was a grey wolf with predatory eyes.

Wave leant on the counter and fanned herself using the collar of the red flannel, at the same time exposing more of her ample cleavage. She saw now that the wolf was salivating, "My bro." Her voice was low and alluring as she asked, "Have you got anything that would interest me?"

"Right this way, Miss," he winked, leading her into a different section of the garage where most of the mechanics and some of the clients were working with Extreme Gear, "I haven't seen you around this part of Soleanna, are you visiting?"

Wave was now glad she was not the only purple swallow in Soleanna, and that her tattoos could be easily covered with gloves, because if her identity was compromised she could alert Eggman of what they were doing. Thank goodness this place hadn't been bugged beforehand, "Yup. How long have you been working this job?"

"A week now, I'd say. What brings you to the city of water?" he asked, riffling through some shelves filled with cluttered pieces of scrap metal.

"Rumours about The Tails Doll," she said excitedly. The wolf froze, his grip tightening around the spanner he had in his hand, he'd been using it to poke through the rest of the metal.

"You haven't seen him, have you?" she almost had a heart attack, Jet had sprung up from absolutely nowhere. Now he was standing next to her and the grey wolf she had been speaking to had narrowed his eyes and regarded the hawk with suspicion.

"My step-brother," Wave clarified, and the wolf seemed to ease up a little. Wave's watched beeped, but Jet was still looking towards him expectantly.

"Well? Have you?"

The wolf sighed before and continued to find the radiator unit, "Maybe you've heard of The Jacaranda Slaughter, the one that was at The Violet Manor, maybe a week ago I think."

"Yeah?" Jet said eagerly, but the wolf seemed a little displeased at him, he was entirely willing to devote his attention to Wave though.

"I was there, stealing with one of my friends… We… talked to the- to the Tails Doll."

Wave's eyes were wide and she, along with Jet, pressed themselves forward in eager anticipation, "He… he wanted to know how to get into the manor, so my friend, Hershey, offered him directions. Before she did that, we saw him, using a knife he'd taken from one of The Violet Guards, he cut out his tongue and we watched him bleed to death on the floor."

Jet gasped, childishly clamping his hand over his beak. Jet was almost as perceptive as Wave, and could tell when someone was lying, this world wasn't lying. She rolled her eyes, _Great, now he's going to have nightmares._

"What was he like?" Wave asked, but was quickly interrupted by her pendant beeping, alerting them that they only had two minutes left.

"Horrifying…" he murmured before his paw curled around the radiator unit they needed. Jet stiffened and Wave placed her hand on his arm, telling him to relax under her breath. Wave got up and offered her hand, fluttering her eyes. The wolf surrendered the piece of machinery willingly. Wave inspected it, making sure that it was free of cracks and bumps, fuses and loose bits before she sent the wolf a bedazzling smile.

She set her boots apart with a loud skid and landed a solid punch to the wolf's solar plexus, the punch being Jet's cue to start the chaos. Wave used the wolf's falling shoulders to perform a graceful cartwheel, landing behind him and turning around rapidly to slash-kick him three times in the back, leaving three small slashes where her heel had scraped the skin.

Jet was a few meters away, working on fighting, defending himself and stealing firearms out of their hands and holsters before the inhabitants of the garage could even blink. She subdued the wolf by hitting the pressure points of his neck and watched as Jet started to employ their birth-taught form of Self-Defense; Methel Alewah, translated in Babylonian meaning 'To move like air'. It was a self defense technique that boys were taught since they were seven and girls since they were ten, dedicated to using their enemy's power against them.

She watched as Jet gracefully leapt over mechanical benches and slugged people continuously, his attacks were unexpected and their enemies were taken down instantly, since their attacks continuously focused on weak spots like vitals or pressure points. Within moments the inhabitants of the garage were lying on the floor unconscious, and Wave was adjusting her shirt so that it wrapped around her hips. It was starting to get chilly.

Storm rode in, his board, instead of leaving the trademark light stream that it normally did, it was leaving behind puffing clouds of purple smoke. Wave and Jet both sent him thumbs up before smirking and heading out themselves, retrieving their boards, their radiator unit and _all_ the rings on the premises.

Wave, Jet and Storm shared a collective hi-five, "Mission accomplished."

* * *

><p><em>Blow <em>by Ke$ha

* * *

><p>"Where are you guys going?"<p>

Blaze turned at the sound of Silver's voice, inquisitive and curious as always, but thankfully holding no accusatory notes in the simple question. Marine was at her side, wondering if she should answer for The Duchess, seeing as she wasn't opening her mouth and staring at Silver as if he had just sprouted wings (which would be totally useless anyway). Marine wasn't stupid, Blaze knew that Marine could tell the relationship dynamic between Silver and Blaze had changed ever since she had attacked the both of them a week ago.

There was no easy conversation between the both of them any more (Blaze and Silver), it was all rather forced, and she could tell that he was avoiding her. Maybe he was afraid he would be hurt again by her flames… everyone had come to fear her for that reason anyway… why not Silver?

She forced on a weak smile and turned towards the door to the garage, "We're going to get an apartment, if you need us in the next half an hour, we'll be in that apartment block across the street, okay Silver?" He gave her a curt nod, another forced smile and then he waved them off before going to work himself. She caught Marine's expression as they were crossing the street; disapproving. "What?"

Marine simply rolled her eyes and made a small 'pfft' noise with her lips, blowing air out through a pout so that she blew a raspberry without sticking out her tongue. It was a generally disgruntled, unsatisfied sound. The Duchess simply narrowed her eyes, demanding an answer. When Marine caught the look she widened her eyes in feigned innocence, "Don't need to go all aggro on lil' ol' me, Duchess. Not me place to point out when one's in the shit with blokes 'cause o' some unresolved sexual tension…"

"_What?"_

She rolled her eyes again, a bad habit that she had been picking up from spending a little too much time with Heartnet, and started speaking by accentuating her words as if she was old and deaf, "Shut yer cakehole and listen for a bi' 'kay? There ain't no need to be regardin' Silv as a silly lil' yobbo when tha problem s'obviously tha massive stick up yer arse."

Once again, Blaze was stuck wondering how she could be friends with someone she didn't understand half of the time. Marine was delightfully rustic, but there were times when her profound use of slang irritated her as much as a real language barrier would, "Excuse me?"

"She said 'Please be quiet and listen to me, alright? You don't need to treat the young man so harshly when _you're _the problem'."

"Thank you," Blaze said to the stranger at the door, "wait a second!" Blazes noticed now how they had reached the apartment block opposite The Black Arms and were standing in front of a very amused looking human. The apartment block only looked a little better than The Black Arms in terms of maintenance, and it wasn't exactly legal for a sixteen year old to be taking care of a thirteen year things were tough in Crisis City, and circumstances were often overlooked. Blaze had the money to pay them; she had recently gained employment at Vanilla Rabbit's bakery and would be off to get some work for Marine after she had had this meeting.

"Everything alright here?" the lady asked, she was fairly young looking, with olive skin and black hair.

"She'll be apples," Marine declared, and the human took it in stride, giving them a small wink before there was an interruption from behind them.

"Bobo mga bata!" **(Stupid kids!) **said an old woman, raising her walking stick in their direction.

Marine shrieked and jumped behind Blaze, using her as a shield. The cat rolled her eyes and watched with curiosity as the young lady immediately held the old woman back from clobbering them with her walking stick, "Tahimik na, Lola!" **(Be quiet, Grandma!)**

"Ang mga bata na ito ay dumating sa tampalasanin ang aming mga ari-arian, Leilani!" she shrieked. **(These children have come to deface our property, Leilani!)**

"Huwag uto, Lola." **(Don't be silly, Grandma.) **The young lady said soothingly, gently ushering the older woman into a nearby room, for some reason… she seemed so familiar… "I'm sorry about that, my grandmother is easily excitable."

"You're tellin' me mate! Crikey, ain't there a law against verbal accusations in gibberish?"

Blaze cuffed one of Marine's ears, afraid that she was going to offend this woman who would be in charge of their accommodation, but she simply laughed, "You're from Downunda, aren't you? I went to school there."

"Now that's some pretty amazing stuff. You're alright in my book then, Sheila," Marine declared, giving her a thumbs up.

"Technically she's the land-lady, but she's not fit to handle this kind of thing at the moment. She's a little paranoid. My name is Leilani; I'll conduct your interview."

She tried to lead them up the stairs, but stopped their steps abruptly waiting for an entity that wasn't there, "Wait for it." A second later a young rhinoceros Mobian came hurtling down the stairs with absolutely no regard for people around him. On the way up to the top floor the human continuously pointed out helpful little hints, and giving them guidance; 'there's a creaky, false step there', 'one of the toddlers had an accident there this morning, I'd not step there if I were you' and at one point she'd rushed them past a bedroom where the couple inside were expressing their love… physically… and very vocally.

She led them into one of the rooms on the top floor, settling down on a couch in front of a tiny television while she took an armchair, "Do you guys want refreshments? Oh wait, on second thought, all we have is soy milk and decaffeinated coffee. Maybe water?"

"We're fine thanks," Blaze said, resisting the urge to retch at the mention of soy milk. This human was strange, and her apartment was weird as well. There was a guitar propped up against a corner, but weaved in between the strings were brightly coloured pipe cleaners, and there were three different lava lamps all around the apartment as well as candle containers of different colours and shapes. She'd heard a hissing sound before, but the kettle didn't look like it was on. There was an unfinished canvas of a watercolour painting near the kitchen bench, and a Milo container that didn't look like it was filled with Milo. The desk was littered with papers of sketches, documents, books and rocks with googly-eyes on them. Hanging from the ceiling fan was a pair of pants that either Leilani was oblivious to, or didn't care about that… they looked like they belonged to a man.

The strangest thing she was focusing on right this second was the human's strange attire, dressed in a pair of frayed short-shorts and wearing a stained loose 'Jacob Black' t-shirt. She had paint splatters all over her arms and face, in fact, Blaze just noticed the roughly painted moustache above the human's top lip. When she noticed, she couldn't help but grin in amusement. By the look of it, Marine had noticed the green moustache as well. She was wearing a multitude of strange bracelets, some not unlike the kind that Heartnet tended to wear, and plastic rings won from arcades, and her tresses of black hair were tied up in a multitude of ribbons and bows put up carelessly to keep her hair out of her face, and she was still failing.

This human was definitely strange; she wondered how living with her might be.

"Alright, so 'Blaze' right? I'm sorry you had to deal with my grandmother over the phone, her accent is really hard to understand," she sighed, riffling through some of the papers on the desk, "What's the name of your friend?"

"I'm Marine," the raccoon replied.

"G'day," Leilani answered cheerfully accompanied by a lazy two-fingered salute, and for the first time, Blaze noticed there was a rim of red around the human's pupil that slowly bled out into a soft chocolate brown colour, "so, we do things simple here. There are the original two gold ring deposits for the keys, and the damage deposit, which would be one-hundred bronze rings. You requested occupancy for three months, and decided to pay fortnightly, which should account to a total of sixty gold rings in total."

"Bonkers! That's so cheap!" Marine declared, receiving an elbow in the ribs from Blaze.

Leilani laughed nervously, "There are certain… circumstances which make the place much cheaper than your average place."

Blaze narrowed her eyes, "What kind?"

Leilani's eyes slid over to the Black Arms through the window, "Well, for one thing, we live close to The Black Arms, which, as of late, has been receiving a lot of unwanted visitors."

Blaze nodded in understanding, the Metal Sonic incident, plus the paparazzi that had been hiding out, pretending to be Tails' customers, there were also the reporters that were trying to find out about her, Sonic, and some government officials just hanging around looking around for suspicious activity, not to mention the Egg Pawns had been patrolling this section of Crisis City a lot closer than the rest of it.

"Is that it?"

Leilani curled in her lips and paused a little too long for Blaze's liking, "What do you mean 'Is that it?' normally when we mention The Black Arms people just start running."

"Of course not," Marine declared, "they're our mates!"

"Is that so?" Leilani asked, the corners of her eyes crinkling up in a sweet smile that was far too welcoming for Blaze to trust, "You wouldn't happen to know the white bat that's always passing through, would you?"

"A'ight! That's Shadow's broad! First we thought she was a right floozy, but it turns out she's some kinda best friend, who would 'a thunk right?" she asked Blaze, who narrowed her eyes and cuffed one of Marine's ears again, "Yowch! Dammit, Blaze."

The human's eyes widened, "Shadow?"

"Listen; are we getting on, or what?" Blaze asked, using a no-nonsense attitude she would admit, she had adopted from her mother. She got out her purse and was about to hand the rings over when a great green snake emerged from one end of the couch. It slid right into Leilani's lap.

"Oh sorry, he's the other reasons my patrons keep on running away." The Duchess had stiffened, while she wasn't particularly afraid of snakes, they still freaked her out, and they had frightened the ever-living daylights out of Marine, who was using Blaze as a shield again, "He's Aerow, isn't he cute?"

Marine gulped, "D-do you keep him in this apartment?"

Leilani shrugged, laughing, just a _tad_ bit maniacal, "Oh no. Technically he's not even mine, he just likes to hang out with me, but he likes to visit all the other patrons too."

Marine started hyperventilating, "Blaze…"

"It's not a deal-breaker, is it? We allow all patrons to have pets."

"Is he poisonous?"

"Heavens no… well… not that much. His venom tends to make people a little sleepy, but that's pretty much it."

Blaze released a shuddering sigh and smiled, handing over the deposit, "No, it's not."

"_Blaze!"_ Marine whispered harshly.

"It's cheap. It's close to our friends. What else could you ask for?"

Marine tugged on her ears, but didn't protest any further. Leilani pushed the papers towards her, and Blaze was about to sign when she looked up to the human suspiciously. "Is there anything else we'd want to know? Aren't you the least bit curious as to why I'm taking care of a thirteen-year-old?"

The human placed a hand to her heart, "It isn't my place. The lives of everyone in Crisis City are unique and different."

Blaze let out another huff before the door next to them opened with an almighty creek, and a young man with brown hair and blue eyes stumbled out with a bunch of papers in one hand, "Cesario! Team Chaotix is on the move and-"

Leilani's eyes widened and she jumped up to steal the strange cap that was on the man's head, "Yes! Dear, that is a fantastic song, it should move to the top of the charts by next week."

Blaze narrowed her eyes in barely veiled suspicion. When Leilani caught the look she wrapped her arms around the man and kissed his cheek, "This is my boyfriend."

The man blushed and pushed away from her, "Lani! What the hell has gotten into you?" he pointed at her accusingly, and that's when it all started to make sense. The cap that she had taken off his head harboured a GUN logo. The human noticed that Blaze and Marine had found out and promptly snarled at the young man, "What?"

"You are _by far_ the worst student I have ever had! Even my superior acting skills cannot cover up what you've just done."

"Yer GUN agents!" Marine declared, after she realised why Blaze had become so snarky halfway through the conversation. Leilani dragged her hand down her face in exasperation, revealing an expression they hadn't seen, one of distain and irritation.

"Alright, and Eggman's a bald, fat madman, what's yer point?"

"You're _endangering _all the people that live in this building! What if Eggman found out about your whereabouts?" Blaze asked.

"Well," the woman lowered her eyelashes and spoke with a menacingly low tone, "he hasn't found out about _my_ whereabouts for four years, so I reckon I'm in the clear." Then the human looked over to the younger man and punched his arm, to which he flinched and whined after he had been his, gripping the abused limb.

"Ow!"

"_This idiot_ however, could give us away any day now." It was still hard to take the lady seriously, what with the painted moustache on her face and her ridiculous appearance. It seemed the human male noticed this and started laughing as well. Before long, Marine joined in. Leilani narrowed her eyes and gripped the male's t-shirt with force, "What's wrong with me?"

He spoke between chortles, "You've got a little something, here," he pointed towards the moustache and she went over to the kitchen to bring out a large blade to examine herself. When she realised what was wrong, she threw the blade at the male, missing him by inches. It embedded itself into the wall behind him… up to the hilt. The laughing ceased. She walked over to her snake, picked it up and grabbed the man's pants, pulling at the back and dropping the snake into his trousers.

"I'm sorry, Darling! He needs to be taught a lesson," she said cheerily, and for a split second, Blaze realised she liked this woman, some things aside. She turned towards the two Mobian girls, let out a huff directed at her supposed partner (who was yelping and trying to get the snake out of his pants) before crossing her arms over her chest, "Well, as you might have assumed, I already know all about you; Lady Violet and her mechanic, former member of The Coconut Crew, and good timing too because the second in command is about to put everyone there in danger."

"Why?" Marine asked, her blue eyes widening.

Leilani held up a hand, "Classified information. You know, the land-lady business is real. My grandmother does not know I am a GUN agent and I would like to keep it that way. If you're really not here to rent the apartment you can leave. If you keep my location as a GUN agent a secret then I'll keep your association with The Black Arms classified as well. Do we have an accord?"

"About what?" Blaze asked.

"The apartment and the secrets."

"Both," the lavender cat answered confidently.

"Seriously?" Marine said.

"Right then. I'll be expecting the first payment by the end of this week, Miss Violet." Leilani smiled, and the red in her eyes flared with magic and intrigue, "GUN agents Leilani Cesario and Christopher Thorndyke, at your service."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>I know right? Bet you weren't expecting, huh? :D REVIEW please! Even a small little 'nice job' or 'keep going' is appreciated.


	19. TickTock Rhythm

**domi|note: **You know. This story was only meant to be told from the perspective of Tails and Wave… epic fail right? Um... do you guys need subtitles for what Marine is saying? Some people seem to have problems understanding her.

Thanks to** HalfWright**, **Undead009**, **Exploder**, **ArmalRavenwing**, **Metalshadow1909**, **LordCooler**, **RandomAnonymousReviewer**, **WelshScot**, **The Guy in the Background**, **superechidna**, **DaddlerTheDalek** and **Ficfan412** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice that which we are for what we could become. ~Charles DuBois<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Nineteen  
>.<em>  
>"Gimme one good reason. There's nothing you could say. Gimme one last chance, we're never gonna break. I got a tick-tock rhythm running through my veins. (Got a tick-tock, got a tick-tock, yeah) We are, we are, we are. Oh, whoa, oh. Unstoppable."<br>…_  
><em>_Simple, Starving to be Safe_ by Daphne Loves Derby

* * *

><p>The wonderful thing about being 'The Lady Violet' was that not a lot of people knew what she looked like. The images that were shown on the television were of what she looked like when she was a child, which would be darker purple fur and hair that wasn't long enough to put into a ponytail. She didn't have to hide her face among the public, but she did act a tad bit more cautious whenever The Police were concerned.<p>

Today she strode free towards the Soleanna docks, breathing in the smell of sea-spray and distant winds as they caressed her fur. She was in a good mood, all things considered. They'd managed to score an apartment where they could visit their friends anytime, and she'd kind of gained GUN's protection, which was an added security blanket and one less worry if she didn't think about the possibility that Eggman would find out about Cesario and Thorndyke's location.

She couldn't help it, she was a natural pessimist.

Marine was next to her, looking around animatedly. She didn't seem to be in a bad mood, but the cat did catch the odd crease of eyebrows every now and again, "Are you worried about something, Marine?"

"Yes," she answered immediately, "it's about what that GUN agent said about The Coconut Crew."

Blaze snapped her fingers angrily, careful to make sure the air before her did not ignite. "If only I had some form of communication, maybe you could tell them… maybe you should use a payphone and contact them. Oh no, that would definitely be bugged."

Marine dragged her tan gloved down her face in exasperation, "They're me mates, Blaze. I feel some obligation to warn 'em they got a standover man- bloody Whiskers- ready ta do some shonky business righ' under their noses. They're in trouble, and it'd be better ta bail out now."

"When did you find that out?" Blaze asked. "That Whiskers was crooked?"

"When I stayed behind at the Mystic Ruins Centre," she replied timidly, wringing her hands behind her back.

The cat narrowed her eyes, "_Why_ were you staying behind?"

"Because Caleb asked me to."

_First name basis, _Blaze thought worriedly. "_Why_ did you listen to him?"

"Argh, he's cute, okay?" Marine growled, cheeks blushing red. "And even when 'e ain't using that 'emotion' power he 'as, he's pretty persuasive! Plus, 'e's the only one I don't have to explain me slang to wheneva I use it full throttle."

Blaze rubbed her eyes with her gloved hands, making a small groaning noise. "I can't believe this."

"What?"

"I fully disapprove of him, Marine! He's rude, snarky, manipulative, and selfish. You can do much better than him, disregarding the fact that he's definitely too old for you. Silver says he'll be turning seventeen in two month's time," Blaze declared hotly.

"Do you know when 'is birthday is?" Marine asked.

"December 13th."

"Oh good, I'll buy 'im a present then, thanks Blaze!" she declared happily, skipping down the dock in front of her. The Duchess rolled her eyes and waited for her to stop, because she was sure Marine didn't know where she was going. Eventually the raccoon stopped and waited for The Duchess to catch up, "Why do _you_ know so much about 'im?"

"I'd hardly call it 'a lot'. What I learn, I hear from personal experience and Silver."

"'Xactly! Silver's bias!"

"But he's also _honest._"

"'Member what I said 'bout sexual tension, Duchess?"

Blaze's cheeks pinked up and she crossed her arms, turning away from her friend in what could only be described as a truly childish act. Beside her, Marine was grinning from ear to ear, laughing at her friend's embarrassment, "Shut up."

"So where we headin'? What am I gonna have to do?"

"Hopefully something that combines your hydrokinetics and your mechanical ability," she explained, turning down one of the wharfs and walking down its stairs to reach the beach. Blaze was wearing a pair of boots, but Marine was stuck complaining that she was getting sand stuck in her sneakers. They trudged along, Blaze enjoying the sunshine until they got to a small little gathering underneath the next wharf, "Just… please don't many any jokes about the way he talks…"

Misterioso was a fairly successful fishing company that was mostly operated by felines, one of which, just happened to be Blaze's older brother, Big.

"You have a brother?" Marine asked in astonishment.

Blaze sighed, "When I was a child, I used to run away, a lot. I could manage it back then, before my parents started upping the ante. Big always told me not to, said that I could get hurt. And one time, I almost did." Marine watched her friend, waiting for her to continue, "I got caught by a pair of Egg Pawns that saw me using my pyrokinetic abilities. I had trouble getting home, and that's when Big decided to help me, I was seven at the time and he was nine. In a battle to get me away from them, Big received brain damage, and can now only process things at half the normal speed."

She watched Blaze place a hand over her eyes and heaved in a huge sigh, "I stopped running away after that, instead witnessing as Big continued to disappoint our parents over and over again. I hated it. In the end Big ran away and joined Misterioso so he wouldn't have to worry about anything, including our parents… including me…" Marine could have sworn Blaze's voice shook a little, but as expected, The Duchess composed herself, "Despite everything, Big has forgiven me for everything, even when our parents renounced his title… and disowned him. Sometimes I just don't think he remembers what I did to him."

As soon as they were amongst the group of felines she was enveloped with a group of concerned faces, asking Blaze if she was alright and that they were sorry for her loss. The lavender cat took all of this in stride, instead moving the attention to Marine, "Thanks for your concern, but I really didn't come for that today. As you know, my father isn't exactly pleased with me right now, and I'm trying to keep away from him."

Hathor, the leader of this particular branch of Misterioso, spoke up, "Well then why are you here?"

"My friend, Marine, has been put out of a job because of my father, yet displays incredible technical prowess in all things water-savvy. I think you would benefit from her employment," Blaze declared, pushing the suddenly nervous raccoon forward.

"Although we'd love to employ her, simply because The Duchess says so, we need some technical proof," said the leader. "Come, come, we'll need you to fix a boat that is not currently working. It would have been fixed already… had our last mechanic not… fallen to the hand of Egg Pawns."

"Sorry, ma'am." Marine said politely, following the woman towards one of their impressive sailing boats. Once they had walked off, Blaze turned to the remaining felines and asked where her brother was.

"Ova there, with 'is pet frog, Duchess," was her reply.

She walked out from under the wharf and watched her shoes sink into the sand a minute. She hadn't seen her brother in over a month. He didn't like technology, so maybe… if the other employees at Misterioso hadn't told him, he didn't know their mother was dead.

"Big?"

The larger purple cat turned around instantly, a smile stretching the whiskers of his muscle as he dug the end of his fishing pole into the sand bank and got up to approach her, "Blaze! Blaze!" He swept her up into a hug and twirled her around like he used to when they were kids, "I missed you! And Froggy did too!"

"I missed you too," she replied gleefully, loving the fact that her brother could still toss her about like a rag doll. When he finally put her down, her expression sobered and she murmured quietly, "Big… Mom passed."

There were a few uncomfortable silent seconds between them, but when she looked up, there was ready compassion in the larger cat's eyes, "I know."

They simply stayed like that for a few more minutes, comforting in the fact that Big didn't judge her, wouldn't _blame_ her for anything, just because he was her brother. She blamed herself for her mother's murder, she'd blamed her father, and she'd blamed Silver, Caleb and Marine. She'd blamed herself countless times, and when her father had thrown the accusation in her face, she had actually started to believe it. Having Big here to assure her that he would love her regardless of anything was comforting. It made her feel as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders and with that, she found herself smiling and laughing, properly.

They caught up on what was happening with each other, chatting animatedly when Marine came up to them and hugged Blaze tightly, "I got the job!"

"Congratulations!"

"I start next week, but thank you so much for getting me the job, Blaze!"

"You're welcome."

She thanked Big and they made their farewell, promising that she would visit more often and heading down the strip of The Royal Court boardwalk… fearless.

* * *

><p><em>Postcards and Polaroids <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>"I find it hard to believe that I was friends with a lady of such strange tastes."<p>

"Hey, you're friends with me, aren't cha?" Rouge grinned, walking up to the steps of the apartment and knocking on the door. Of course, she didn't want to recount the fact to Shadow that he and Leilani never really got along before. Both the bat and the hedgehog's eyes widened when the door opened to a fairly short-ish human wearing a Venetian mask and two gummi worms sticking out of her mouth while she carried a bag of dead flowers and more assortment of dead plants on her hip.

"Ya?" she asked, with her mouth full before she realised who it was and dropped the dead plants, spitting the gummi worms in the bag, "Rouge! Shadow! Hi! It's about time someone dropped by that wasn't carrying dead ducks or used sex-toys."

_What the fuck?_

She ripped off the mask and tossed it somewhere before allowing the two in asking if they'd like anything to drink as she bustled about the cramped little apartment.

"Have you got any alcohol?"

"Shadow!" Rouge chastised.

"No problem, I think we have VB somewhere around, 'fraid I just finished the avocado margaritas a second ag- aha!" the human fished out a bottle from the fridge and popped up from behind the kitchen counter to ask if Rouge wanted anything. The bat politely declined and watched as the human settled down on the couch opposite them, crossing her legs over. The bat raised her eyebrow, wondering where the defined, classy young woman she had met a week ago had gone… then again, Leilani was known for her… unorthodox behaviour. The bat felt sorry for her young student.

"There isn't any reason to act so formal, Rouge. You might be used to it, but I'm used to tripping up my superiors and sticking 'Stick goes here' signs on their asses."

Despite Leilani's vulgar behaviour Rouge found herself smiling, recalling the so many times she had seen a GUN official with an insulting message taped to their backs. Shadow was not as amused by this, he just looked rather confused. Leilani noticed this, her brown-red eyes flashing with understanding, "Man, I am _so_ sorry Shadow. My name is Leilani Cesario. Rouge explained the situation. All of this information must be really new and shocking to you."

"Thanks, that's very considerate of you," he said.

Leilani rolled her eyes and snorted in a way that Rouge could see had clearly offended him, "Why are you thanking me? I've memorised the psychiatric routine thoroughly enough to imitate what they say."

Shadow growled lowly in his throat and clenched his fists, ready to show this woman what he thought of her 'imitation'. But Rouge stopped him, forcing his clenched fists to lower. The human noticed this; it was obvious in her gaze. Rouge should have known that despite everything and how much the both of them had changed, this might not have worked, because Leilani and Shadow hadn't really liked each other _before, _why did she expect it to change now? Shadow and Caleb hated each other, and at their core, Leilani and Caleb's personalities were somewhat similar, sharing the traits; witty, intuitive and devious, even if Caleb did not share Leilani's barely veiled insanity… her medication was probably just starting to wear off. Although she was far more likable than Caleb, she had never taken well to people that wore masks to hide their pain.

"I see that not even amnesia can take away that 'stick up the ass' personality," Leilani murmured, looking around the trash of her apartment before giving up and opening up a door that Rouge suspected led to the bedroom, "Oi, Thorndyke? Do you know where my tablet is?"

"I'm not _giving _it to you! Not after what you did to me yesterday!"

The human rolled her eyes, leaning her hip against the door and speaking in a voice that would have given _anyone_ chills, "Chris, Darling, I _love_ thinking up new punishments for disobedient students. But since I'm strapped for time, I can limit it to shaving all your hair off while you're sleeping, or possibly putting Viagra in your next meal, or filling all your socks with chocolate pudding, or fucking up all the files on your computer and replacing them with images of The Crazy Frog, or-"

"Alright! Here it is."

Leilani made a gleeful little excited sound that Shadow winced at, prancing back to the couch and flopping back in, "Alright, wait a minute."

They spent said minute watching Leilani tap her fingers across the screen of the electronic tablet, before raising it and reading it, "Okay, Rouge, here's the information you asked for, and I'd like to remind you that my submissive bitch over there-" they paused to listen to the protest of said 'submissive bitch', "-is of Technical Division status, so this entire apartment is completely bug-free."

"Alright then."

"'Report by GUN Federal Agent Topaz Rogers on The Crimson Night.' Oh, Topaz wants to see you by the way, and _don't worry, _she's on your side." Rouge raised an eyebrow, watching as the human scrolled down, "'February Sixteenth, the city of Soleanna (of Monarch) was subjected to one of the world's most violent phenomenon-"

"Get on with it!" Shadow snarled.

Leilani gave Shadow a sarcastic smile and scrolled down her page, "'Agent Shadow the hedgehog disappeared after being separated from his squad in an attempt to locate Eggman's base and steal the Chaos Emeralds."

"No, Lani, I think you skipped a whole lot of important information," Rouge murmured, crossing her legs over.

"Oh, you're right! In the process, said black-furred agent was subjected to degrading and humiliating torture, including having to be forced-fed doughnuts and dressing up as Lady Gaga repetitively, let's not forget the tentacle rape-!"

"Liar!" Shadow snarled, and Rouge had to hold down his arms before he started attacking the human.

"Leilani! Will you behave?" the bat asked.

"Blame 'Ultimate Life Form' over there," the human said, rolling her eyes.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rouge saw Shadow stiffen and place his beer on the coffee table before them, he then turned to Rouge with curiosity in his eyes, "Rouge, what does she mean by that?"

"Um…"

"Porn star stage name."

They both fired a withering glare at the human that didn't faze her in the least. Some strange pop-rock song started in the background and Leilani started rummaging through the mess of her apartment to find it. Shadow leant over the couch towards her while the human spoke on her phone, "Rouge, is there any reason we have to be here? Can't you explain everything? I don't think I was particularly close to this human before."

"You'd be right, but she's one of the only ones one our side."

"Do we _have_ to be here?" he repeated insistently, red eyes flashing, "She's weird, and she reminds me of… what's his name? …Heartnet."

Rouge chuckled lightly, a movement that confused him. That was when Leilani returned and sat down on the sofa again, "Alright, we've got to cut right to the chase because me and Chris have got a mission to head to soon. What you want to know are GUN's exact orders on you, right? I've memorised them; they want to reel you out of here, because you've pretty much pinned 'deserter' to your forehead. If you don't come back and _pretend_ you're okay, then they're going to cut off your privileges as an agent until you do. And _stop _fucking up Shadow's home life, the other units are starting to get suspicious."

"What about the seers?" Rouge asked.

"You can inform him of whatever you want to at The Arms, my cadet did a once over for Egg-bugs while we were scheduling a Gear maintenance appointment."

"'Him' is still here, you know?" Shadow asked.

"Oh, sorry Shadow," she sent him another sarcastic smile, "despite how much it _pains_ me to say this, I've got to get going, and so have you guys."

"Alright then," Rouge said, getting up, "c'mon Shads, she's right. GUN protocol and whatnot." She then got up and caught the human's wrist, "Caleb is looking for you." Leilani heaved a sigh and nodded, "Oh, and… do you know where Truscott is?"

She shook her head, but there was a small glimmer of regret in her eyes, "Yeah, well… I'll see you later, Rouge. It was… _nice_ seeing you again Shadow."

The hedgehog regarded her with a curt nod, but his words were hissed out through grating teeth, "And you, Agent Cesario."

When the two Mobians were out of the apartment Leilani dropped the tablet on the sofa and made her way over to the other room, bypassing Chris who was skimming something on the computer, "Chris, where are my pills?"

The younger GUN agent sent her a sad look, "Lani, those pills aren't going to last you forever, you need to see a proper psychiatrist."

He could see the vibrancy in her brown eyes slowly start to fade as she located the pills by her bed-stand, staring at them silently before she turned to him, "No. I am here to advise _you_, not the other way around."

"How would Caleb react if he'd seen what you've become?" he regretted the question as soon as it came out of his mouth, watching as a flare of red so bright and pronounced flashed through her eyes like waves of blood.

"Fuck off, Thorndyke, we've got a plain-clothes recon mission at The Iron Domain whorehouse. Gear up."

* * *

><p><em>WelshScot; Running Up That Hill <em>by Kate Bush

* * *

><p>Blood, thick, sticky blood was dripping from the punctured chest pocket of a fair-faced young man. His clothes were simply a pair of navy jeans, blue shirt and jacket; along with a small, golden band that was wrapped around his wedding finger. The top of that wedding ring was pressed against the dirty alleyway floor, the fingers of the ringed hand reaching out for a smaller set of fingers. These minute digits belong to a small, eleven year old girl; who shared the same brown hair, rounded cheeks and lifeless eyes as the man who lay beside her, just out of arms reach. Her blue dress, which was tatty, yet fair, was stained with the blood that was dripping from her slit throat and the blood of her dead father.<p>

The killer, the deprived creature that had caused this crime, was lying in the alley also; but nowhere near his victims. Old with greying hair, disgusting with yellow teeth, and insane with shifty and leering eyes, this man had spilt the blood of a father and his child all for the simple pleasure he received as he brought the steel edge of his knife across warm flesh, releasing precious life blood like puncturing holes in a dam.

His joy, his sadistic delight, over his pathetic act was short lived, as hands, which belonged to a man who had been to slow to respond to the final screams of the young girl, grabbed both of the old man's shrivelled ears and pulled until bone had broken with a sharp crack.

Leaving the psychopath to rot; the newcomer walked over the father's corpse. He stopped just beside the body and paused to look at the fair face that was slowly losing the warm feel of life as death's cold hands took over.

The newcomer looked very odd. On his feet he wore big, black, mole skinned winter boots that were trimmed with snowy white fur. He wore similar gloves, though they were made of heavy leaver. He wore dirty white, winter trousers that looked lose; but that was only to hide the thermal lining within that clung tightly to the newcomer's skin. His skiing jacked was a mix of alpine white and shadowy black, combined in a pattern that resembled a husky's fur. And under the hood, which was also fur lined, there was a pure white skiing mask; made of wool and cotton. His entire face was eclipsed by the mask and the only eye hole was placed where a right eye should be. The black lense and the steel setting were in the shape of a sun, like the symbol the Cult of Argus where on their necklace.

And even though the heat was reaching the point between comforting warm and stifling harsh, Hjalmar Tid still unleashed a spiral of dragon's breath as he sighed. This Norwegian man, a half-mutant forensic scientist, an honorary member of the FF, a speed type racer and old friend of Welshscot was disappointed in himself. He had been out for some fresh air, after wining that hectic race, and was on his way back to HQ when he heard the dead girl's final screams for help. He had arrived two seconds later, two seconds to late, and found only what he saw now; a father who was killed right in front of his daughter's eyes, whom then soon joined her father.

It wasn't because he felt sad or distraught at their quick demise. The reason why he was disappointed was that the man, while looking healthier than most men, didn't have the strength Hjalmar needed. This might make this more difficult.

Taking a deep breath, the Norwegian flexed his right hand's fingers as he raised his them over the dead man's face. And though you couldn't tell, he closed his eyes and pressed his gloved finger tips over the dead man's eyes.

At once, Hjalmar felt the familiar gut wrenching force that seemed to want to pull out his veins and organs like how gold miner wants to pull out at a large, lump of gold that was set deep into a mine's cavern. Even with his eyes closed, his eyes were dazzled with a bright, blinding light that shone as powerfully as the sun but bit deeply as a blizzard.

After a few moments of this bombardment of hellish pains, Hjalmar opened his eyes. He looked around at the same alleyway he had been in before, dirty and disgusting but still devoid of bodies. He then looked down at himself; admiring the father's taste in clothes. He raised a hand to his face and felt the soft, rounded cheeks that belonged, or belong, to the unknown father; which the Norwegian now shared.

This was his power, the ability to change the fate of a person's fatal mistake. If he managed to find a dead body, within twenty-four hours after their death, he could use his power to go back to a few moments before the victim's death, from their point of view, and correct their mistake; thus saving the life they would've lost. He had once seen this power in a game, called Cryostasis, so Hjalmar decided to use the name the game had used, which was Mental Echo.

He was soon dragged out his admiration by the sounds of soft crying. He looked around, located the noise from where it was coming from, behind a pair of grey bins, and speed towards them. There he saw the blue dress and brown hair of this man's daughter; who was already in great distress, ignorant of the fate that would soon befall her unless he, Hjalmar, did something about it.

As her teary eyes fell upon her father, she gave a small sob and ran to hug her father's legs. "P-Please, Daddy, I didn't want to see you and mommy fighting. I hate it when you do—why can't we just be happy again?"

Hjalmar looked down at the crying girl, with a small bout of pity in his eyes. He didn't want to say anything; he would let the father comfort her when he got back control of his body. Hjalmar's ears soon heard the soft sound of approaching footsteps; a sound that would've been a missed if he had tried to comfort the little girl. Not this time.

To the girl's surprise and discomfort, Hjalmar swiftly grabbed one of the bin's lids and, after turning round on the spot, swung it at the wrinkly face of his would be killer. The move had done the trick; the old man's knife was sent spinning across the alley out of arm's reach. The killer, however, would not be beaten so easily. Growling with rage, the old man leapt for Hjalmar's throat; while the little girl began to scream and cry for help.

Hjalmar managed to deliver a quick jab to the old man's jaw; causing the would-be-killer to stumble back slightly. As the old man clutched his aching jaw, Hjalmar soon noticed the approaching figure of a hooded man; riding on an arctic painted Gear. And as he looked into the single eye hole of his own body, he felt the familiar pull and bitter cold; as his vision turned white. Seconds later, Hjalmar was back in his own, cold body.

Before he did anything else, Hjalmar leapt of his Gear and, with deadly accuracy, landed a flying kick upon the back of the old man's head; who quickly fell to the floor, unconscious. Hjalmar straightened up, observing the frail, psychotic killer; and would've felt triumphant if he wasn't in so much pain.

The aftershock of using Mental Echo was always a bitch. Though his power already turned his temperature below zero, the cold intensified after he saved a man's soul. How bad it was deepened on how long they were dead for, within 24 hours. And if he over did his daily limit, of four uses per person, then his body would freeze completely for a whole week.

But the pain that was totally unexpected came from thighs. He looked down and saw that the girl, the one he had just saved (with his Mental Echo), was punching a clawing his legs, screeching, "GET AWAY FROM US, FREAK!"

The father soon pulled his daughter away from Hjalmar, saying harshly, "Clara, this man just helped us. We should be thanking him, not tearing holes in his trousers."

"HE'S A FREAK," screamed Clara. "MOMMY SAID THEIR SPAWNS OF ARGUS THE DEVIL!"

A look of anger flashed across the father's face. He looked down at his daughter and said, "Your mother is a biased woman. She is blind to the fact that Mutants are just like us, except they are given abilities that bring them prosecution. This man just helped us, so I want you to say thank you."

The girl looked like she was going to protest, but a sharp glare from her father put it to rest. She turned to Hjalmar and mumbled, grudgingly, "Thank you...freak..." Her father glared at her again; but said nothing.

To be honest, the Norwegian was surprised that her father wasn't the one trying to attack him. It was the usual way humans showed gratitude for his help; without them knowing that he had used his power to bring them back from the dead.

The father walked towards Hjalmar and said, "I'm sorry for my daughter's rudeness. Thank you for stopping that mad man before he tried to kills us again. I managed to fend it off, but it was all on instinct..." He frowned and rubbed his chin. "Hey...have you ever had a random vision where you see yourself dying?"

Hjalmar shrugged his chilled shoulders, replying in a light, Norwegian accent, "Nope...never happened to me." And with that, the ski masked man went on his way; leaving behind two people who were in more debt to him than they could possibly know.

* * *

><p><em>xx.d; Tell Me<em> by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>Soleanna residence were completely used to the flash of blue and red as he passed through the streets, awed but unsurprised at just how fast Sonic could move. Many wished to experience was moving through the speed of sound felt like, but not many had experienced the feeling. Yet, the hedgehog's thoughts weren't focusing on what everyone else was thinking, just one particular fox, which at the moment was resting in The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre.<p>

Why couldn't Tails understand that he was just trying to protect him? He'd lost his mom, two siblings, an uncle, a father and now he was losing a little brother. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn't Tails know that he had barely survived? If those bullies had gone any further than what they had before Tails Doll appeared, he would have _died? _Solaris, where did the kid get this devil-may-care attitude?

He didn't stick around fast enough to hear Welshscot's verdict, as soon as he learned that Tails was going to survive, he'd gone off on a run. He hadn't returned since. Sonic wasn't any stranger to hate, and he claimed that he wouldn't let what other people thought of him affect him at all, but there were some people, from which he couldn't handle that kind of treatment. Tails was one of them. What his little brother thought of him was _incredibly_ important. And to hear that Tails thought of him as some kind of conceited asshole with a hero complex… it hurt.

And the thing was, the more he thought about it, the more he realised it was true. He did care for others more than he did himself and maybe that was starting to shine through. He'd promised to let Tails do whatever he needed to do, and he would only step in when he was absolutely needed. But… where was he going to draw that line? When Tails was on his death bed?

He thought he'd taught Tails enough to survive but… it looked like it wasn't going to be enough now that he was getting himself involved in a death race. Tails was talented, he was kind, he was _amazing,_ but it's not like Soleanna was going to realise that overnight. Maybe Tails thought that winning this thing would change their minds… maybe he'd heard the roar of the crowd and thought that they were cheering for _him_ instead of the underdog that had beat the system, even if he _was_ the underdog that had beat the system.

"Why won't he let me protect him?" he growled, heading back to the Rapidi Solis' main station. Rapidi Solis was stationed in the middle of Crisis City Court, which was at the centre of the city right next to the huge cross section they called 'Lethal Highway'. It was also near the construction sights and the tar pits, generally one of the most dangerous areas in Crisis City, but the pay was incredible if you could move and navigate at fast speeds through what could be considered their post-apocalyptic city. Sonic could, and if he didn't skate by, doing the bare minimum, then he would have been considered an even more valuable asset to them than Caleb Heartnet, who just happened to be popping in now.

"Heartnet!"

The fox turned around and raised an eyebrow at the hedgehog approaching him, "Hi… Sonic?"

He could understand why the younger fox looked confused as to why he was trying to communicate with him now, he hadn't exactly made an effort to get to know him after Silver had become his sworn enemy. But this was Welshscot's apprentice, and he would probably know how severe Tails' state was, and maybe… it wasn't like he wished harm on the fox or anything, it was just that he didn't want Tails to compete in the next race, "Are you busy?"

"Depends…" the fox said cautiously, heading over to their secretary and handing in his delivery log, "What am I needed for? I've finished my rounds, but I kinda had something planned."

"Ah, what kind of something?" Sonic asked.

"It's Wednesday, I was gonna try and find Welshscot, I don't know, he isn't picking up his cell phone…" Caleb murmured awkwardly, looking at the door.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, how did you plan to heal Tails? Is he going to be alright by the next ra-" the brown fox's eyes became wide and he clamped his hand over Sonic's mouth.

"Not _here_ you idiot!" he removed his hand when he saw Sonic was going to stay quiet and looked around to make sure no one had seen them, "What's a place nearby that's not filled to the brim with tech?"

"The Tar Pits?"

They made the short walk to The Tar Pits in silence, Caleb watching around cautiously to make sure no one was following them. When they were finally there, the fox let out a small little huff of a laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"This is where I met Tails."

Just the mention of his younger brother made the blue speedster's heart clench, and obviously, this spike of emotion was enough for Caleb to catch on. He sent a withering look at the fox, to which Caleb simple shrugged, "I don't need to read your emotions, it's all over your face."

"Well then you'd probably know what I'm asking for?"

Caleb scoffed good-naturedly, "I didn't say that. Go on; tell me what you were going to say."

Sonic raised an eyebrow. It had been almost four weeks since he had met the fox, but he seemed much more different. What had happened to the snarky asshole that Tails had brought home? At least now he seemed halfway decent.

"I haven't got all day, Sonic. Aren't you supposed to be the fastest thing in Soleanna?" he growled.

Alright, maybe he hadn't changed _that much._

"I want to know if Tails is going to be alright for the next race?"

"Yes. He will," He replied, over exaggerating by crossing his arms over his chest and pretending to examine his nails, "Can I go now?"

"Wait a second!" Sonic exclaimed. "How? He has multiple broken bones, and you can't perform the chaos ritual on him without killing him. How is he going to be ready in that time?" If they even _thought_ about doing that on Tails, he was going to wring their necks.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you," Caleb mused, trying to side-step Sonic and head off, but Sonic blocked his way before he even blinked. Of course, to Sonic, everyone else was moving in slow motion. Normally if he pulled this kind of stunt, he'd see his enemies flinch to start their attack, and Caleb did at first, but then he stilled, realising that he didn't want to get in a fight with the fastest thing in Soleanna.

"Please, tell me what you're going to do."

"I'm going to change my last statement to: 'I'm _not_ going to tell you'," he muttered, trying to back away, but Sonic was behind him in another blink.

"Why not?"

"Because I know what you want is against Tails' wishes, and what we're doing for him borders on the edge of illegal," the fox explained, narrowing his eyes. Caleb was young, but he was more of a manipulator than a fighter, more of a 'flight' than 'fight' type of guy.

"Define," Sonic requested (read: demanded.)

"No," Caleb declared defiantly, trying to turn tail and run, but unfortunately, Sonic was behind him again; ready to stop him from running away.

"Why are you so hell-bent on Tails continuing the competition anyway? Do you _want_ to see him get killed?" he protested.

"No! Solaris, why does everyone keep assuming I'm heartless? Sonic, _I'm _a big brother too. I _know_ what you're going through. I'm a little brother as well, not by blood but that means that it's more similar to the relationship you have with Tails. I know what _he's _going through too."

"You… you are?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. He couldn't imagine Caleb as part of _anything_ bigger than what he was; he was always such a lone wolf. He didn't like being around others, and even when he was, there was always a reason behind it.

"Yes and what you see as 'protection', Tails sees as 'restriction'… I know he's pushing the boundaries pretty far but he feels that if he doesn't he will never get any stronger."

"Didn't you hear your mentor? He might not _fly_ again. If anything, this has made him weaker."

"That's true… in its literal sense, but his _emotional _state of-"

"Tails can be as emotionally strong as Buddha for all I care, I just want him _alive._" Sonic protested, "So please, tell me what you're doing."

Caleb stared at him for the longest time, blue eyes flashing between hurt and guilt before he started to slowly shake his head, "No. You're… you're going to stop us."

"Of _course_ I am!"

"Then I can't help you."

Sonic sped forward and fisted his hand in the front of Caleb's shirt, not to hurt him, but to intimidate him. He should have realised from the beginning that this was a bad idea, _"Tell me."_

"Please don't make me use it," the fox pleaded, trying to pry his hands off.

"Tell me!"

"Don't you understand? _Be there_ to save him when he's about to die, when you can. But _don't_ stop him from fighting!" Caleb protested, blue eyes becoming panicked as Sonic's grip tightened.

Just when Sonic thought that he was on the verge of actually _hurting_ him, he started to feel a prick in the back of his head, which gradually became throbbing, and then he let go of Caleb and dropped to the floor, clutching his cranium in agony. It felt as if someone had split his head open and chucked a bunch of thumbtacks in there, closing him up and shaking said thumbtacks around recklessly, "Even though hurt isn't an emotion, my power allows me to control the amount of pressure applied to nerve cells, particularly those of pleasure and pain."

"Alright! _STOP!_"

When he did, and he looked up, head throbbing painfully, Caleb was panting and looked at him as if he'd just run a marathon, "You-you-"

"See, I fucking _hate_ doing it, because it knocks me out for _hours_ after I do but sometimes it's just bloody necessary. Listen to me, if you don't allow Tails to participate in the Grand Prix, he's going to hate you for some immeasurable amount of time, and then, when he forgives you, he's going to find something twice as dangerous. Because even though he's younger than you, he feels the same amount of hate, you know?" Caleb sighed, looking past the waste of The Tar Pits, "He feels the hatred, the pain, the sorrow of losing someone important to him. The disgust, the injustice, the _fury_ that comes with living in this fucked up society under someone that just won't let it go. Maybe tenfold _because_ he is that age. I've never felt the drive in _anyone_ that strong."

Sonic slumped as the empath's words sunk in, finally starting to understand things from Tails' perspective. The limitation of age and physical strength was _nothing_ when he had this goal in mind. This beating was just proving _just_ how much farther his goal was.

"Determination _that_ strong," his voice sounded weary now, and he was aware of Caleb's scruffy black Converse tittering from side to side, "Sonic… it's just… _unstoppable._"

Sonic closed his eyes and an image of Tails when he was four years old popped into his head, crying and absolutely helpless. That was followed by another, Tails when he was around eight, showing Sonic his very first Extreme Gear. When he was ten, showing Sonic a paper crane he had just built out of his construction paper. When he was twelve, working on Extreme Gear and handling anti-mutant customers with a smile. When he was fourteen and fighting Scourge and Fiona. Racing in the Grand Prix and flying through the air. Beaten and broken in a cot at Mystic Ruins. Yelling at him viciously. Telling him to 'Piss off'.

_"I'm not a child!"_

"Caleb?"

_"BECAUSE I WANT TO KILL EGGMAN! THAT'S WHY!"_

"Yeah?"

"_G-get out! Get the hell out, Sonic!"_

"I want to help you."

_"Sonic, you're not my father!"_

"You're not lying."

_I want to make sure he never looks at me like that again… He's a smart kid. If Tails wants to participate in the Grand Prix, I'm hard-pressed to stop him. I'll… I'll be there to catch him when he falls._

"I'll help you. Whatever it is, I'll do it. If it will make Tails better, then I don't care what it is."

Caleb sighed and Sonic watched as his legs wobbled weakly, "I'm sorry… I just can't trust you. Come back to me when your conscience doesn't waver."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>I can't believe my own plot is daring to go against me. Don't worry! Everything will be explained in due time.


	20. This World Has Changed Me

**domi|note: **Isn't it interesting that the climax for this story was supposed to _start_ this chapter? Now I can't even see where it is.

This is the last filler for now. I've got a small little background story idea going, and you'll see the seed of it, in this chapter somewhere. Brownie points for the person who finds it.

Thanks to **Exploder**, **Undead009**, **SsMmAaLlLlSsPpEeKk** and **The Guy in the Background** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. ~James Baldwin<br>_…_  
><em>**Anthem of Our Dying Day**_  
><em>._  
>Chapter Twenty<br>_._  
><em>"I'm tired and I'm lost. I don't want to be found. I put my heart and my soul, and strength in this now. So forgive me 'cause I won't forget that, yeah, this world has changed me."_  
><em>…_  
>Remain <em>by Alanis Morissette

* * *

><p>The Black Market of Soleanna resides in the underground, literally. The plaza of the first market district was directly underneath the 'Crisis' City Court, the underground didn't need artificial light because Soleanna's own brand of fireflies reside in hives at the roof of this giant cavern. Golden light washed over The Black Market as if the sun shone every hour of the day. It was getting <em>inside<em> The Black Market which was the hardest bit. There were many entrances, but all of them almost deadly to enter. They were constantly guarded, and it was _expensive_ to bribe them to let you in.

_One_ good thing about The Black Markets was that the guards were not racist to mutants and humans; they judged people by the weight of their wallets. Only the most conniving, the most highly regarded, or the most heavily armed could get in free of charge. _Normally_ one with mutant powers designed for treachery could pass without bother, but Knuckles was not one of these people. There _were_ however, different methods to get in.

The hushed whisper flittered through the line allowing people to get into The Black Market as Knuckles passed with Julie-Su in stride. He had never been to The Black Markets before, and was nervous about this new venture, mostly because of rumours that people were eaten alive down there.

"It's Julie-Su, of the Nocturnes!"

"Let her through. Let her through!"

Knuckles grinned, watching Julie-Su wink at him before jerking her thumb in the direction of the entrance, "'S nice, being VIP, isn't it?"

"What else has changed?" he asked curiously.

"C'mon," she ushered, taking his hand and leading him further into the cavernous marketplace. Knuckles took in the rich scenery, watching as vendors to the right and left of him sold merchandise and produce that one could never dream of finding in the marketplaces. The entire market reminded him of those ancient fairy tales he had grown up reading about; The Prince of Babylon and The Arabian Nights, the fabled cities rumoured to reside around the ruins of Shamar and Persia. He had tried to learn Methel Alewah before, the Ancient Babylonian fighting style, but it didn't work without a teacher. It was said that masters of Methel Alewah could stand still for hours, fight off armies, and still their breath for _hours_ so well that they could pretend they were _dead_ and no one would be able to figure it out. They had such advanced control over air that it baffled him.

"Oh, what's that?" he asked, pointing towards a person who was holding up a glowing blue necklace next to a portable fish tank.

"Those are air necklaces," Julie-Su whispered into his ears, "very popular with Misterioso fishers and the non-amphibians that work at The Docks. They allow people to breath underwater without the use of scuba gear and diver's suits."

Knuckles nodded and then spied another vendor, this time with a large floating grey ball, "What about that?"

The pink echidna followed his curious gaze and smiled, "That's a teleportation ball. If you buy two of them, then you can teleport between them simultaneously. If you touch one while it's glowing, then in inverts the gravity in the room. I don't know about its practical uses, but it's really fun."

His purple eyes widened as the Mobian next to the ball turned it on and everyone within three meters of it was hoisted into the air as if floating into space, "That's amazing! How come I've never heard of any of these items?" he didn't wait for her response because something else caught his attention, "What's that?"

Julie-Su turned to a new vendor who was trying to interest Knuckles in a new pair of gloves, "Those are Hammer Gloves, they amplify the power in the user's hands and arms, but they're a pain to power up, take around a week to charge and you can only use them for about three hours before they power down."

"They sound sick!"

The vendor smiled. He was a human with surprisingly snake-like features, "Made from the finest Solean metal, you can't get _any_ finer. Because you, Sir, obviously have fantastic taste, choosing this pair," he held out the ones that Knuckles had been gawking at, "I'll give you a discount from ten thousand rings to seven hundred."

"The _finest_ metal? I'll take it!" Knuckles declared reaching into his jeans when Julie-Su stopped him and dragged him away from the obviously displeased vendor. He yanked her hand out of his and cried out when she bonked him over the head with her fist lightly. She used to do that to him and Sonic when they were kids as well.

"Knuckles, we're not here to shop, besides, do you honestly believe the real thing would be that cheap? It was probably a fake. We'll look around when we're finished doing business."

Knuckles sighed and shrugged, "Okay, why are we here again?"

"Metal Knuckles sent us here to find information on the rumour about 'Black Wings' and see how that shipment of aloe vera is doing."

"Aloe?" Knuckles asked, alarmed."Isn't that dangerous? Considerin' it's illegal and all."

Julie-Su rolled her eyes, but the red echidna was alarmed. Is this the kind of thing that Julie had been doing ever since they'd come apart at The Massacre? How long had she been dealing with these dangerous matters? When Sonic had explained everything about the fight between the Suppression Squad and The Nocturnes, he thought that had been a one-off thing, but apparently, Julie-Su had been fighting alongside them for years. While he'd been dilly-dallying, taking care of the Chaos Emeralds he had in possession, she'd been in these life-or-death situations that could have resulted in her death ten times over now. It was a worrying thought.

When Sonic and Knuckles had been younger, and Julie-Su was being taught mannerisms with Tikal, they always promised that they would protect her from danger. He promised that he would be her knight in shining armour, a relationship similar to that of Sir Gawain of the Round Table with Julie-Su as the ugly hag Ragnelle, whose ugliness melts away once she marries her beloved knight. They used to play that game a lot, with Sonic playing King Arthur and Tikal playing Nimue, the Lady of the Lake. He was supposed to be _her _guardian.

"So naïve Knuckles. Of course it's illegal; it makes Mutant's stronger… well, I'm not sure about your family."

"Hush," he urged, "nobody knows that The House of Edmund actually harbours a hidden mutant gene that cannot be detected."

It was true, and somewhat confusing to anyone that knew Knuckle's family well enough to know that secret. Normally, the mutant gene was detectable in blood, but those of Knuckle's family never had been. Nevertheless, his family was always incredibly strong, in a super-human manner, and they could harness special Chaos energy whenever an Emerald was in the vicinity. Unfortunately it was too dangerous to unearth these at the moment for fear that Eggman might find them.

They ventured further into the marketplace, with Julie-Su having to repetitively tug on Knuckle's dreadlocks to keep him away from the vendors. He had never seen such amazing merchandise before. There was a vendor with a bunch of special watches that claimed to countdown to the exact moment that one would meet their soul mate. Julie-Su thought it was stupid, but when he asked her why, she just blushed and looked away. There were glasses that claimed to see ghosts, Ouija boards and even solid blocks of concrete that depicted evidence of 'The Werehog' a legend centred on Spagonia where the residence of that city turn into monsters during the night time. He desperately wanted to have a better look at everything, but Julie-Su was adamant on getting her mission done first. He had to stop though, when he saw a gallery of magnificent paintings, all displaying different people and landscapes in beautiful colour and technique. He recognised the style instantly.

"Is that?"

Julie-Su followed his gaze and sighed sadly, "Yes. That is Selina's artwork."

Selina Winchester was a renowned artist of the Soleanna high-court, the _best _by many people's standards (most of them critics). She had been pro-mutant though, and worked for anyone she wanted to. She'd helped with the artworks for both The Church of Soleanna and Argus, but had created beautiful murals in Crisis City, to brighten up the landscape. She had married a corrupted member of court, who now reside in Soleanna's Mental Facility, but still managed to somehow control half of the city's crime syndicate. He was Selina's supposed murderer, but he had blamed her death on the events of The Crimson Night. Not many believed him. Their children had gone missing.

Knuckles had known her because she was always employed by his father, who only turned to her when he wanted a family portrait. Selina, after finishing the portraits, would sketch pictures for Sonic, Julie-Su, Tikal and Knuckles for their amusement, and free of charge.

"Are they real?" he asked. He had adored Selina, and was devastated to hear of her death. Even if those paintings were fake, attaching Selina's name to them meant the merchant could add at least two thousand rings to their value. Now all he remembered of her was warm blue eyes like melting glaciers.

"I really hope they're not," Julie growled, "those portraits should have gone to Selina's children… _Such injustice…_" They decided to forget about it and move on. They had to be fake anyway.

They came to a corner of the marketplace that led into one of the tunnels, this particular tunnel led into a large circular chamber where the vendors were not selling merchandise, but _information._ Half of them were 'Get Rich Quick' schemes, but Julie was determined to reach one particular corner, this just happened to be the business transactions for The Coconut Crew, they were right next to Mammoth's Loan Sharks and Omo-Parts, a business by the famous commentator Omochao, which shipped Extreme Gear parts into Soleanna.

"Hi Colonel," Julie-Su said, taking a seat in the private stall of The Coconut Crew as the koala drew the curtains around them.

"It's nice seeing you again," the grey koala had a big set of bug-eyed glasses on that Knuckles could not see through, "who's your friend?"

"This is Knuckles," she laughed, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Underground Virgin."

Knuckles spluttered and blushed at the comment, even more embarrassed when Julie and the koala started laughing at him. He supposed it was better than 'Black Market Virgin', the term used for people (specifically girls) being sold by slave traders. There were fewer now because most were immediately irradiated, but you saw the odd two or three now and again.

"Alright, well, what are you here for today? Do you need another shipment of weapons delivered to Metal Knuckles?"

"Oh no, I just wanted a status report on the Barbaderis," that was another word for aloe; he wondered why she couldn't just use 'aloe' instead. It was all equally illegal. Knuckles didn't oppose to illegal activities like this, mostly because it shouldn't have been illegal in in the first place.

"Intel reports that they've just passed The Sapphire Sea, and they'll be here in around ten hours unless they run into anything unexpected."

"Okay, that's pretty much all we needed to know, oh and…" she thought about her next question cautiously, "how much is the aloe going for now?"

The koala held up one finger and looked through some of the files he had lying around before nodding, "Okay, a three hundred millilitre bottle is worth around twenty-five thousand rings now. It seems the closer it's getting to Soleanna, the faster the price is going up. Weird, isn't it? We had a test bottle shipped in a few days ago, but it seems it was stolen. I wonder who picked it up."

"Hmm, alright. Thanks a lot, Colonel," Julie said, waving him off before hoisting Knuckles up.

"Enjoy the rest of your date, you two!"

Knuckles promptly began to choke on air. Two embarrassments in ten minutes. They moved back to the main parts of the marketplace where three firemancers were creating a spectacle of themselves to gain some money from the buyers heading into the food court. Knuckles couldn't help but be reminded of Blaze, who would have slain those clowns in their acts. Julie-Su laughed at him, which caused the corner of his mouth to twitch up at the way her violet eyes sparkled.

"C'mon Knuckles, we've only got one more errand before you can look around to your heart's content," she smiled, grabbing onto his hand.

"What was this last mission again?" he asked over the hustle and bustle of The Black Market. He spared a glance at the firefly nests hovering above them and promptly brought out his phone to check the time. It was hard to believe it was midday; they'd spent over three hours simply navigating through the crowds.

"We need to see a seer, have you heard the rumours about the 'Black Wings'?" she asked.

"You aren't referring to The Fallen-"

"Shh! We can speak about it later, when we're in a private seeing booth."

They navigated the streets again, this time Knuckles made more of an effort to stay away from the vendors. They made it to the divination section around fifteen minutes later after running into seven low hanging dream-catchers and choking on incense smoke. They stopped in front of a fortune teller, this one happened to be surrounded by small clouds of steam to make him look mysterious (and the echidna would admit that it worked). They sat in front of the offered mat while the fortune teller closed the curtains around them to give them a little more privacy, "My name is Khan, what form of divination will you require today?"

Khan was a brown monkey with a golden ring band wrapped around his head, in the centre of the band lie a ruby that looked fairly valuable. Khan's eyes were blue but his expression remained emotionless while Julie-Su formulated her question, "We'd like to know more about The Black Wings, and how they are related to Eggman."

Khan nodded but didn't say anything while he applied the necessary ingredients to a bowl he set in front of them. The items seemed to be nothing more than what he would normally find in one of Amy's health packages i.e. scented oils and dried flowers. He threw in some fresh ashes to the mix and they watched as the smoke started to curl up and form pictures before them. He moved the bowl in a circular motion, chanting something in a language Knuckles could not identify, much like those ritual he had seen on Adabat tribal movies.

Khan threw something new into the potion and the mixture before them sparked to life, releasing a puff that looked like a smoke screen, out of it, fully recognisable images. The first one... was of Knuckles, "In order for me to tell you anything, I must tell his fortune."

"Are you okay with that Knuckles?" Julie-Su asked. Knuckles gulped, but nodded. He guessed it wouldn't hurt.

Khan wiped his hand across the screen and out of the smoke and cloud appeared a picture of The Grim Reaper. The echidna stiffened, an image of his father passing through his mind's eye, "You will experience death, multiple times. Those that fall like pillars around you because of a man lost to the forbidden Argus Arts."

"What?" Knuckles asked, worried.

The monkey ignored him and wiped the veil of smoke again, this time it showed an image of Knuckles racing in the Grand Prix, "One should not count on such dirty spoils, and the reliability of this contest was questionable from the very start, even for one that does not _appear_ mutant."

Knuckles narrowed his eyes but allowed the fortune teller to continue, his mind was stirring with the new information. The next smoke-screen depicted an image of all his friends sitting around Tails after he had won the Grand Prix's first race, "Keep your friend's close, and your enemies closer. Surely the most overlooked piece of advice, yet people don't seem to heed it until the disastrous happens."

Did this mean that there was a traitor in the Black Arms? After all, how well did any of them know Silver, Blaze, Marine, Caleb, Jet, Wave or Storm? Silver could be an avid gambler, Blaze could be an escaped mental asylum nut, Caleb could be a prostitute (Solaris knew he acted like one), The Babylon Rogues could have been in position of the aloe vera all along, but decided to sell it for their higher gain. He couldn't trust any of them now.

The fortune teller wiped his hand across the smoke screen to reveal a red sky and out of the bottom of the screen rose a smoky, skeletal figure with… _black wings_. He watched as the figure danced about the smoke screen for a second before reaching out a clawed hand to swipe at him, but before it could reach Knuckles, Khan collapsed the smoke screen, so that is why the monkey looked panicked when it just swirled back into the red sky again (against his wishes), where the silhouette of Eggman could be seen, with the black winged figure raising a hand like claws to slash at his throat, to which Eggman promptly dropped dead.

Knuckles clenched his fists and Julie-Su gasped, Khan wiped the smoke screen repetitively, but the black figure continued to dance in a disjointed rhythm against the blood red sky. The sight sent shivers down Knuckle's spine. In the end, Khan took away the scented oils and dumped them in a waste disposal, seemingly irritated at his own fortune, "I apologise. You will find that I am not the only seer that this has been happening too. All my fellow fortune tellers have had visions of a skeletal man with black wings taking Eggman's life."

The monkey then narrowed his eyes at Knuckles, whose violet eyes had become wide with the images that would haunt him now, "But _never_ has it _reached out_ to touch the customers before. What I can tell you is this; we will see the end of Eggman before our generation ends, but it will be at a grave price. Many will die, many will fall to the hands of corruption, but there will be some, some under the influence of the- the 'Black Wings' that will rise up and become _heroes_. My friend, the gods point their hands at _you_ this day." Knuckles cringed and shook his head but Khan persisted, "No! It's written in the smoke, your ancestry speaks volumes about who you are now, and one can only assume _you_ are the power behind The Black Wings."

The red headed echidna shook his head again, realising this was a mistake, and he got up and walked out of the stall. He waited for Julie-Su to pay the fortune teller and meet him outside. She didn't say anything and simply placed a hand on his shoulder in comfort.

"Hey, Julie."

"Yes, Knuckles?"

"Do you know those watches that count down to the exact moment you meet your soul mate?" he watched her bite her lip, twirling a dreadlock around her finger nervously.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"How do you know it was fake? That it wasn't working?"

"… Knuckles, I don't actually know if it doesn't work or not, I just don't have faith in it," she explained, only proving to confuse the echidna. When she saw the expression she couldn't help but laugh. "When I strapped that wrist watch on, all of the numbers went to zero instantly. Apparently, I've already met my soul mate. I only need to believe a little more, right Knuckles?"

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow, "What are you getting at, Su?"

"Nothing!" she smiled innocently, "You hungry? Let's get lunch."

* * *

><p><em>The Bomb Dot Come V 2.0 <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>Mutants were unnatural. Mutants were vile. Mutants needed to be eradicated like the pests that they were.<p>

Martin Dean Orbot had been a fantastic specimen, desired by all the human females at Megalo Public and looked up to by human and Mobian alike… unless they were mutants. He had fantastic black hair and blue eyes, with a body that the other students of the school would have killed for. But there was no doubt now that they'd wished to be anyone but him at this time, what with a missing thumb and a mind full of horrific images that would set him up in a mental asylum for life.

Whenever his mind flashed to his victim, Miles 'Tails' Prower, he couldn't help but think of the horrific face of the Tails Doll, the fox mask the murderer wore bearing remarkable resemblance to that _of_ Prower. Was it a coincidence? Or was his pathetic mutant classmate somehow related to this masked maniac?

It didn't matter, because now he was hell bent on getting revenge. This time, he would kill Prower, and he wouldn't do the job half-assed either, he was going to watch the squirming little fucker die before him. First he was going after his friends, he'd never really liked that 'Silver' guy, the one that looked normal, but was really a telekinetic. And then there was that 'Amy' girl that he had lunch with sometimes, and her best friend Cream seemed to have a crush on him. He would enjoy watching Prower's expression as he plunged a knife into their hearts, so that he could feel the pain that MarDean felt when he'd seen his father's decapitated body at The Violet Manor, or when Tails Doll had pulled away his thumb.

Even if they weren't mutants, they deserved to be killed. Anyone that supported the cause of these filthy creatures needed to be killed as well, there was no more tainted way of thinking, than believing humans, Mobians and mutants could live alongside each other peacefully. That is the way that losers thought, losers that had already given up the fight against mutants. It was like living among _aliens_ and getting along, when any moment they could scoop you up and murder you on the spot. Before any innocent Mobian or human could get killed by mutant hands again, they needed to be killed. There is no such thing as an innocent mutant.

MarDean was now heading to the Megalo racing team with a large sum of money. They reside in a place underneath Megalo Station in a private Gear maintenance workshop. These housed the roughest, most skilled Extreme Gear riders native to Soleanna, but at the moment they were relaxing around, smoking and playing video games. Solaris…

The cheetah that had come third in Prower's race approached him, observing him suspiciously, eyes roving over the bandage of his left hand, "What d' ya want kid?"

"You know of Prower?" MarDean asked, sizing up the cheetah in front of him. He was a little taller than him, meaning he was huge by Mobian standards.

"Who doesn't? Little runt from Black Arms cheated in the last race," the cheetah spat.

"I need you to make sure that his board is so mangled he can't even use it," MarDean explained, handing over the envelope which held over fifty gold rings, which equalled around ten thousand ring credits.

"You sure it wouldn't be better to just mangle the kid?"

MarDean shook his head and raised his hand, making sure all of the cheetah's friends could get a good look at his damaged hand, "I already saw to that and look what happened to me? Tails Doll has his eyes on this kid."

"What do you mean? Like, as a victim or…"

"No, as a _guardian._"

The cheetah hissed, "Fuck. That isn't something you want to deal with. How do you know the Tails Doll isn't going to go after us? This ain't just some game kid, I mean, I played that game when I was little."

"The one where you lock yourself in the bathroom at three a.m. and sing 'Can You Feel The Sunshine?' waiting for The Tails Doll to come?"

"Yeah," the cheetah nodded, "doesn't work."

"My sources say that Tails Doll isn't very tech-savvy. He sends everything with written notes apparently, so he isn't going to figure out that it was you unless he sees you with his own… eyes… or someone tells him."

"Alright then, as long as it knocks that stupid kid out of the running, it's okay?"

MarDean nodded, "Yes, just make sure the Tails Doll cannot trace you… or anyone that's pro-mutant for that matter. That kid has powerful allies, okay?"

"Yes, gotcha."

MarDean left them with the money and a promise for more when they completed their assignment. He smirked and flipped open his phone, looking for more 'allies' that would help him extract revenge. There was always someone willing to help out with the anti-mutant cause.

He had a contact to meet, outside the corner of Megalo, in an alley and near Lethal Highway. He was a brown fox, a normal one. He had red hair and wore crummy clothing, when he turned around he was met with really dark brown eyes shielded with darker sunglasses. He was wearing a dirty red flannel and faded grey jeans with ruddy Converse sneakers, plus these weird hemp bracelets that jangled when his hands moved.

"Are ya the contact from The Black Market?" MarDean asked.

"Ya," the fox smirked, keeping the baseball cap low over his head, "The name's Gabe."

"Weird name…" MarDean muttered, but 'Gabe' didn't seem phased by it, "What 'ave you got for me?"

"A tip-off. I hear you don't like mutants, eh? Well here's a good idea ta make 'em suffer. You buy this miracle drug, 'Barbaderis', and put more than three hundred millilitres in one of their drinks. They'll drop dead in seconds."

MarDean looked at him sceptically, "How do I know it works?"

Gabe made a look of mock hurt before smirking, because passing them right now was Storm the albatross, a mutant of strange talents; able to grow wings whenever he felt like it. He waved the albatross over and said, "My good man would you like refreshment? I am one of your biggest fans, Mr. Storm."

"Oh, well thanks." It was also a good thing that Storm was known to be one of the dimmest people out there.

As soon as Storm had reached the bottom of the mystery 'Barbaderis' drink, the big bird dropped dead before them. They'd waited for ten minutes before MarDean decided to grasp Storm's hand and make sure there was no pulse. He grinned.

"Okay, where can I get this mystery drink?" MarDean asked Gabe.

"Meet 'Hawkington' by the docks in a few days. I'll give you the directions on the night. Have the payment ready."

"Okay then. Nice doing business with you... Gabe."

He'd make Prower regret the day he was born.

* * *

><p><em>Time Is Running Out <em>by Muse

* * *

><p>"I've got your message," Wave declared, spying the brown fox leaning against the door to the sickbay. He didn't look up to register her, fully immersed in whatever he was doing on his phone. She waited three minutes silently waiting for him to finish what she assumed was some kind of really long text message. After the four minute mark she started to get impatient. Five minutes and Caleb finally looked up to acknowledge her, but he immediately returned to his phone. Her eye twitched, "Hey? What are you doing?"<p>

She received no answer, so she started to speak again, "Listen, I can't get the details to the other rouges if you aren't going to tell me anything." Caleb simply raised a finger, clicking away at the phone with one thumb. She narrowed her eyes at him, "Listen, if you're going to send a message that long then you might as well have called the person." The fox released a small huff of a laugh but continued to press buttons on the phone.

She waited another two minutes, examining what he was wearing. It didn't look any different to his regular tatty attire, but she could see the fading remnants of red dye clinging to bits of his black hair, and…

"Heartnet, what the hell is up with your eyes?"

The fox blinked before leaning over and carefully taking out two lenses so that his normal cobalt blue irises could be seen, and then he went back to his phone, placing the lenses in his pocket. Then she lost her temper and snatched his phone, eyes widening at what was on it, "You made me wait fifteen minutes for _this?_"

His eyes looked panicked as he snatched it back, "You narcissistic bitch. I was about to beat my high score."

"Tetris can _wait, _Caleb."

He made a small 'pfft' noise and knocked on the door, "Someone needs to get laid."

Her eye twitched and she raised her hand to slap him when a gentle, "Come in," filtered through the door.

"Hey, before we go in, could you tell me why you needed to borrow Storm?"

"Well," he said, "you know how Storm is the only one out of you three who have mastered Methel Aw-whatchamacallit so well that he can fake his own death? Pretty damn cool how you birds can control the amount of air expelled from your lungs."

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, I needed him to fake his own death."

"Why?" she asked again.

"Go and ask Jet," Caleb whined, "he might explain it to you, unless you decide that you want to stop _him _from achieving high scores as well." He pocketed the phone and heaved open the heavy steel door, uncourteously allowing himself in and then leaving her to deal with the weight of the door herself.

_What a gentleman. _

"Oh, hi Caleb, hi Wave," Tails greeted, a little confused at seeing them together. Despite the fact that they had been spending a lot more time with each other, but that was only because of the heist. Heartnet had also been seeing equal shares of Jet and Storm; they still didn't get along like one would have thought they would have learnt to by now. Understanding exactly how the empath thought was… difficult, especially because he relied so heavily on the psychological responses of the enemies.

"Hello, Prower. How have you been holding up?" Caleb asked, seating himself next to the fox. Admittedly, Caleb had been spending the most time with the injured fox, mostly because he had been trying to find Welshscot, who had disappeared soon after he had gotten Tails back into a stable state, but as of late, he had been the main person in charge of the deliveries from Black Arms to Mystic Ruins, probably because he had more spare time. Everyone was wrapped up in their own little problems nowadays, and because of it, they had become something like friends. She said 'something like' because Caleb was still hesitant about getting close to him, getting close to _anyone_ seemed out of the question to a person like him.

"As well as the last time you asked, which was… yesterday? Haven't you found Welshscot yet?" Tails asked, to which Caleb replied with a shake of the head. Wave raised her eyebrow, irritated at the way that with all of the brown fox's movements a small jingling sound went off. He wore an awful lot of accessories for a regular, sane (well… maybe not so much) teenager.

"I need to use your laptop for a bit, alright?"

"Go ahead."

Wave was surprised at how their relationship dynamic had changed so drastically in the last week. Caleb was still pratty and rude to many people, but now he was regarding Tails with respect and tolerance. It was… pretty amazing.

The door opened and Tikal walked in, assuming her place at Tails' bedside, checking his fluids and making sure he was in general… better health. The brown fox noticed she was there and smiled, "Oh, good timing, Tikal, I need your help." He booted up the computer and accessed the search engine, turning his head to Tails, "This laptop is wired to CJ's network right? So that the firewalls don't attack this comp?"

"Of course."

"Good. Alright, just a few questions." He typed for a few seconds and then asked, "Okay, have you ever tasted aloe vera before?"

"Aloe- What are you doing with it?"

Wave smirked, laughing a little, "I've been hearing that a lot lately." The empath nodded in understanding, the corners of his lips twitching up.

"No, I haven't," Tails answered, raising his eyebrows, "what does that have to do with anything?"

"Are you allergic to anything?"

"No."

"Tikal? What would be the fastest way to administer it, if you were to receive it in liquid form?"

"Injections."

"Tails," he asked, still typing away at the computer, "are you afraid of shots?"

"No, but-" Wave smiled, seeing that the empath's ignorance towards Tails' curiosity was starting to irritate the younger fox.

He held up a finger, a little like what he had been doing to Wave before, "Alright, and Tikal, since the effects of aloe affect all injuries at the same time, if you tally up all his injuries and cut down all their healing time by ninety percent, then how long will it take for Tails to heal?"

He left the echidna alone with the question while he typed at the computer some more. Wave looked at Caleb with worry, how did he know so much about this miracle plant? Did he _really _not want any for himself? "Hey, Heartnet, how do you know so much about aloe?"

Caleb did not acknowledge the swallow by looking at her; he just continued to work with a quick, terse answer, "When my friends used to spike me with it in Downunda, I decided to search it up to make sure I wasn't going to die."

The thoughtlessly voiced comment caused Tails to stiffen uncomfortably. When Heartnet noticed this, he smiled and patted Tails shoulder gently. Wave saw why soon after he had let the fox go, there weren't many spots under Tails' fur that weren't black and purple with bruising. She looked away, just in case the fox saw her staring. Despite the fact that she wasn't on the best terms with the fox, she didn't believe anyone deserved this kind of treatment. She decided to turn her attention to a much lighter conversation topic, "Hey, are we ever going to find out what happens when you drink aloe?"

"No," was his instantaneous response.

"Why not?" Tails asked."Do you shoot fireworks out of your ears or something?"

"No, but it's a pretty embarrassing situation nonetheless, you will _never_ find out."

"Aww," she pouted, knowing she was making the brown fox uncomfortable.

"I estimate it would take him around four days to heal absolutely everything," Tikal declared, looking at her watch and then sighing sadly, "Except the damage to your tails, if it isn't permanent, then it would take over seven months. Is that all you needed me for? Because I've got to be somewhere else."

"Yeah, we can figure out the rest ourselves. Ta," he grinned, waving her out the door. Caleb acted _so_ weird to doctors compared to other people.

"Okay, Prower, since you're a genius, this must be a piece of cake for you. Give me your weight in millilitres."

"Around twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred and eighty."

"Now cut that down by ninety percent."

"Two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-eight."

"And if the bottles come in three hundred millilitres, then how many will we need?"

She was surprised at the efficiency at which they were working. They seemed completely and utterly serious when she had only seen them being stupid before.

"Around eight."

"Okay good, because we're trying to steal as much as we can carry here."

Tails eyes almost bulged out of his head, "_Stealing? _Just what are you getting yourselves into?"

"Nonsense, Tails." He smiled, "We're simply relinquishing the acquisition of items that may-or-may-not have been acquired through unlawful means."

"Just because you say it like that doesn't mean it's not stealing," Tails smiled at Caleb's wordplay, and Wave would admit that she was quite entertained by it as well.

"Tish-tosh. It sounded a little better, right?"

"True," Wave smiled.

"But enough about that, Pinkie and The White One have asked me to relay some information to you," Caleb said, pulling a battered piece of paper from one of his pockets, "Okay, firstly; the washing machine is broken, and Shadow either doesn't know or doesn't _want_ to fix it."

Tails rolled his eyes, "Gotcha, I'll get on it as soon as I get home."

"I knew you were going to say that," Wave declared, "but we doubt your friends are going to allow you to do it."

"Okay, secondly; what is the _deal_ with you weirdos? Just the other night, Knuckles was trying to see how many pegs he could stick to Amy's clothing when she fell asleep on the sofa."

The yellow fox chortled softly, eyes going warm. It was a nice look on him, Wave decided. She had always considered Prower to be the quiet, gentle type. That's why he had surprised her so much when he'd sworn at her and joined the Grand Prix. This kid had two very different sides.

"That's just a little game we play. Sonic and Knuckles used to fall asleep on the couch all the time and me, Shadow and Amy used to get really annoyed with them, so one day, Shadow just dumped a whole lot of whipped cream in Sonic's hand and told me to get feathers." He laughed a little more at the memory.

"The first time they were pranked, they didn't get it, so we'd prank them until they decided it wasn't safe to sleep on the couch anymore. But then, Shadow had been watching some kind of late night documentary and he had fallen asleep on the couch as well. Sonic and Knuckles took that as their chance for revenge. Shadow woke up cuddling one of Amy's Chao plushies and Sonic was taking pictures. From then on, we take advantage of anyone that falls asleep on the couch."

Caleb just blinked and gave him a bemused expression. Wave laughed. They did a similar thing to Jet whenever he would fall asleep at his office, "Okay, another thing; I bought a carton of chocolate milk to give to my sister, and it disappeared within ten minutes of putting it in the fridge, do you know who it was?"

"Either Sonic or Silver, they love chocolate milk."

He clicked and whispered, "Dang," under his breath. "Alright, now; how do you stop Amy from throwing knives at you when you try to enter the kitchen?"

Tails openly laughed at that one, so hard he had to close his eyes and wipe tears away, "Did she do that to you?"

"Me _and_ Jet, he's missing a few feathers and my hair is shorter than it was before."

Wave joined in Tails' laughter this time, wishing she had actually seen the spectacle so that she could recall more details to him… and hear that laugh a little more. She wrapped her jacket tighter around her, crossing her legs over one another. She was sitting in the neighbouring, empty hospital cot, waiting for Caleb to finish up his business to finalise all the plans for tomorrow's heist. Still, she would admit that she was reluctant to leave this atmosphere.

"There _is no_ way to avoid her like that. Just… stay out of the kitchen."

"Okay…" he sighed before murmuring, "Alright, I also came today to ask you about something serious." Tails' grin lowered into a frown and the jovial atmosphere turned cold in a second, "I spoke to Sonic the other day."

The younger fox's eyes misted over for a second before they hardened into ice, turning away from their gazes, "Did you?"

"I tried to explain what you're going through."

"How would _you_ know what I'm going through?" Tails asked, with a mild note of anger in his tone.

"Empath? Remember?" he asked, with a mild condescending note thrown in there, "Listen… there are times when I don't _pry_ into people's emotions, they jump out in front of me, like a flier that's been blown into your face. You _radiate_ yours. So they're almost impossible to ignore, just ask anyone that doesn't have empathy."

And of course, Tails turned to the only other person in the room; her, "Wave, am I really like that?"

"I don't know you well en-"

"You don't need to," Caleb interjected. And because she saw that she would not be able to drop the subject without answering, she nodded her head.

"Yeah. You are like that."

Tails blushed. Caleb laughed. He might have been used to this, the embarrassment that people feel when their emotion is more openly displayed than they thought. Maybe he was still coming to terms with the fact that emotion was kind of like a second skin, it kept people safe. Maybe working with them so much had clouded his vision to how normal people feel about their souls being laid out in the open like that.

"He… oh, what's the right word… kind of understands now. I have no doubt that he will allow you to participate in the Grand Prix when you're bet…" Caleb trailed off, watching Tails' expression with something that looked like confusion. She examined his face too, noticing how his eyes darted back and forth, his eyebrow ridges knitted together and he bit his lip nervously, "Oh man, you are more fucked up than you realise."

"I am not!" Tails replied defiantly.

"One second you're throwing insults at your brother like spears, and now you don't even _want_ to participate in the thing that he was protecting you from?" he asked incredulously, putting the laptop down.

"It's just been that I've been thinking and-"

"You obviously do that a little too much, Prower."

"Don't act like you _know_ me!"

"What's there to know? You're a coward!"

Oh no, they were yelling now. There were no jovial tones behind their insults, they were being serious.

"I am not!"

"Well if you don't have the balls to prove to Sonic you _don't _need protection, as least apologise to him for acting like a high-and-mighty twat," Caleb sneered, eyes narrowing.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"You brought this on yourself!"

Wave tried to shrink further into the sofa, not understanding why the two were fighting in the first place. They'd been thick as thieves seconds ago, she didn't understand what was happening.

"How?"

"I thought you were better than that Prower," he sighed, his tone turning really sad, "that speech that you gave Sonic the other day was really inspiring _because_ you had the courage to stand- metaphorically speaking- up _against _someone that meant so much to you, despite the fact that they were so against what you wanted to do. Do you understand how turning back on your word now is… a real downer?"

Tails thought about that for a second, and despite not really knowing the situation, she understood enough to realise that Caleb had a point. He may have been being an asshole again, but he was doing it for a reason this time. Harsh and to the point.

"I… I understand," Tails said solemnly, "But you still didn't have to be such a dick about it."

"Prick by nature, not by cause," he explained, before looking to Tails, his entire expression softening. "Listen. You don't need to go through this if you don't want to. Even if that would technically mean that Eggman wins and a whole lot of other political righteousness is thrown back in the anti-mutant face-" Caleb ignored the roll of gauze that Wave threw at his face, opting to blink instead and continue his sentence, "-it's completely your decision. Laden with more promise, hatred and chance glory, but still your decision. If you aren't going through with it, I think Sonic would appreciate some kind of forgiving statement though. He was in a bit of a wreck last time I saw him."

"He's been 'a bit of a wreck' all week. Stop sugar-coating it; he's the walking dead." Wave interrupted from her cot. And it was true, for all the propaganda pictures she had seen of Sonic, it had never been of him frowning. Now that she had seen a weeks worth of sorrow on the hedgehog, she was starting to believe it wasn't him. Tails took in Wave's words with wide-eyed panic, obvious guilt flashing through his eyes.

"I'm _so _sorry, Wave. I apologise for not taking into account your boundless ingenuity in the ways of comfort and truth, even if it's _my _area of expertise."

Tails was being a bit of a wreck now, looking down at his hands with watery eyes. He didn't know what to do, so Caleb turned in his chair so that he wasn't facing the kid anymore. Wave pretended to examine her nails. She was tempted to throw something else at Caleb when he started to play Tetris on his phone again, "I know you're scared. And all of your friends are scared for you, but there are… special powers working in your favour, trust me, one of them carried you here after MarDean got to you."

"Oh yeah?" Tails asked, but the both of them ignored the way his voice cracked.

"Yeah. We didn't see or hear much of him though… something about sunshine. Listen. Just know that now this has happened, you've got more support than before. If you continue with this race, I've got a plan brewing that'll make sure MarDean isn't anywhere near you."

"Where _will_ he be?"

"In jail."

"How are you going to get him in jail?"

"That's for me to know, and for me to know."

"Why are you being so nice to me anyway?" Tails asked, and Wave perked up, a movement that Caleb noticed immediately. He narrowed his eyes at Wave, but continued to play Tetris.

"Do you know how many people would have turned me away from their homes the moment that I called them an axe murderer?" he asked, and Tails had to recall a _lot _of information to remember the moment he had met the brown fox. Wave was just confused, these two were weird.

"No."

"A lot, Prower. I was mean to you. I was sarcastic. I accused you of having coordination so bad you would knock a baby into the tar pits. I accused you of being a molester, mocked your height, swore at you, questioned your sanity, and have insulted you and your friends countless times," he admitted, and all of this with a straight face. He closed the cheap phone and turned to the fox, his expression one of gratitude and a little amusement. "Now that I've opened up my empathy power and realised how much of a royal dick I am, I realise that I am _so_ lucky I ran into someone that has the patience and tolerance of a bloody saint."

Tails pinked up at the confession, and Wave was surprised that a message containing so many curses had been so genuinely honest and- at its root- nice.

"I feel like I should repay you somehow. Because, while realising these personality flaws isn't going to make me change overnight, at least I can get you something substantial to make your life a little easier."

"Well, he's just organising the heist," Wave sighed, swinging her legs over the edge of the cot. "While we're risking our lives, Caleb will be at The Black Arms reading some of his 'favourite novels'."

"What do you mean by that?" Tails asked, and the brown fox made a gesture that looked suspiciously like he was going to cut her throat if she continued talking.

"Silver caught him reading a Twilight book the other nig-Ow!" the swallow was abruptly cut off when Caleb threw his phone at her, hitting her right in the head. He had better aim than her. Rubbing her head she snatched the phone and pointed an accusing finger at him, "Ha! How are you gonna play Tetris _now_, Edward-Lover?"

The brown fox moved around the edge of the smaller mechanic's bed and wrestled his phone out of Wave's grasp, "It was my _sister's._ I was just reading it to make sure it was age-appropriate for her."

"I bet you get off on a werewolf and a vampire fighting over the same monotone-speaking harlot," she laughed.

"I've taken you've read the story before?" he smirked and she let the phone go.

"Regardless, it's still blackmail," she laughed.

"I know where you hide your chocolate stash, I will not hesitate to show Jet and Storm where it is." She saw the smile and the flash of jagged teeth when the yellow fox smiled and laughed at their juvenile antics. She was eighteen, what the hell was she doing? Wave paled, but made a 'pfft' noise and tried to wave the statement off, suddenly remembering one of the reasons she was here. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a notebook.

Tails recognised it instantly and reached for it, when he had it in possession he went through the latest entries and groaned, "Damn, I owe fifteen people their Gears back…" he looked through it a little more before mumbling, "Oh, and I've got a new customer, I haven't had a human in a while. Wow, she lives right across the street! You guys wouldn't know a Leilani Cesario, would you?"

Wave shook her head, but Caleb stiffened and snatched the book, typing what she assumed was the address into his phone, "Okay, it looks like I've got a little more scoping to do. Think about what I said, alright Prower?"

Tails nodded and waved them goodbye, soon as they were out of the sickbay. They made it out of the Mystic Ruins Garden centre before she asked, "Is that the real reason you're helping Prower out?"

"Partially, the other is that I've bet money on the kid."

She rolled her eyes, "We need your help on finalising the plan, we've received word that the aloe vera has already been docked. It's said that they're meant to be shipped to Eggman pay-roll hospitals within the next fourteen days."

"Good," Caleb smirked, eyes gleaming, "we only need one."

"Whiskers won't know what hit him."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note:<strong> Review please!~ It kind of made me sad that only five wonderful reviewers posted their opinion, and it sorta makes me not want to continue writing. So post your thoughts! Adequate exchange for my four hours of writing, right?

**ღ**


	21. Nocturnal Friend and Freaking Family

**domi|note: **Sorry guys, I thought that the last chapter was going to be the last filler, but this piece of writing decided to make an appearance. I'm making a double post, because we love you guys so much, but don't forget to review!

**(I) **Commonly known as Zoophilia or Bestiality. Don't ask me how this works.

**(II) **I left the closet a long time ago.

...

Hybrid A/N: Hi readers, this is the guy behind Welshald—"WELSHSCOT!"—Fine, Welshscot. Some may have noticed that I have been absent in reviewing, which I apologize to XX|D for, but things like work, a play, laptop having a period and a new set of medication have been getting in the way. But now that I'm free from any educational and theatrical obligation, I can now help XX|D, who has been doing a fantastic job without me and probably still will, the best I can.

Anyway, I just want to thank **superechidna** for reviewing one of my stories. It is, in fact, in progress right now...but my friend, CJMes12 who has time to help write my character but not beta my stories, is well...I think I just said it. But anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter. Have a merry Holiday, Christmas, Hanukkah or New Year... in whichever order you want.

* * *

><p>"<em>I can't find why I should disguise on Halloween… I already got a mask to get rid of …"-<em> _Thanos Grigoriou_  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twenty One  
>.<em>  
>"What's the worst that I could say? Things are better if I stay. So long and goodnight. So long and goodnight."<br>…_  
><em>_Helena _byMy Chemical Romance

* * *

><p>N o c t u r n a l . F r i e n d . a n d . F r e a k i n g . F a m i l y<p>

"... I'm sorry, Fina..."

The bionic-armed woman didn't reply, as both her normal and electronic eye gazed upon the shaking arm of Julie-Su, who was slowly raising a black, Barrette pistol. Trembling with fear, the pink-furred echidna had to force herself to look at Fina's face as she lined up her gun's barrel with Fina's forehead. It seemed to last an eternity, Julie steadying her quivering hand which was armed with a weapon that could, and would, end the bionic woman's life, when...

"Fine, I'll do it."

Julie-Su spun round, dropping her arm to her side, to watch Emerl raise his machine gunned arm at Fina. Before the echidna could try to stop him, the yellow cyborg unleashed a barrage of bullets. Julie saw, as if watching a frame-by-frame animation, the bullets fly through the air like little angels of death, all set to claim the life of red-haired half mutant.

If Julie-Su hadn't been looking at Fina's cyber eye, which was gleaming crimson (the colour it turned when Combat Mode was enabled), or Emerl's bullets, she would have seen Fina's mouth curl into a smug smile.

Just as the bullets were about an inch from her face, Fina closed her real eye, her smile still plastered to her face. To Julie's complete surprise and bewilderment, Fina's face started to spout a thick red-brown fur, starting from the tip of nose and to the base of her neck. In that one, tiny millisecond, her entire body (except for her bionic attachments) had turned from pinkish skin to burgundy fur.

Emerl's bullet didn't even leave a mark in the newly grown fur, they even made a soft thump as they bounced off Fina's fur covered cheeks. But the yellow cyborg didn't give up. He continued to lay siege to the bionic woman, his blue, bug shaped eyes fixed upon his target without a single glint of anger or annoyance. Truth be told, he looked kinda bored.

It took two minutes to empty his installed weapon, which never managed to pierce Auto Fiona's fur armour, and the floor of the Nocturne's firing range was soon covered in bullet casings and shells. As Emerl lowered his arm, which began to return to its normal form, he stated, "Impressive, Auto Fiona. Your fur armour is just as impenetrable as Welshscot's. But it is clear that yours is superior, due to the fact you can protect almost every inch of your body. And, might I add, the furry look suites you."

Auto Fiona rolled her organic eye, while her cybernetic eye powered down from combat mode, turning her red lense back to blue. "Emerl," she began, her tone half joke, half serious. "Just for future reference, I prefer being called Fina. And though I appreciate the compliment, I think you should stick to flirting with Shade. I've already got Zackary on my back."

Emerl made a sound that could be taken as a nervous laugh which had gotten chucked through auto tune, while Shade, who had been standing right behind the cyborg and Julie-Su, shot daggers at both Emerl and Fina, which seemed to bounce of the latter's armour as she grinned cheekily.

Shade then turned her frustration upon Julie-Su, snapping, "Julie-Su! I gave you a direct order to fire at Auto Fiona! Twenty laps around the range, now!"

The pink echidna had learnt long ago to not question her teacher's commands, especially punishments, but like the best of us she seemed to forget the last time she argued with Shade. Throwing up her arms in indignation, Julie-Su cried, "I thought you were asking me to kill her! You didn't tell me that she could grow bullet proof fur, why do I have punishment laps?"

That was when her sense of place returned, on the sharp end of Shade's fierce stare. Julie gulped and backed away slightly as Shade slowly approached her, like a cat cornering its prey. "Now listen here, Julie..." Her voice was low and threatening, each word seemed to cut through the pink echidna like a knife. "... As my apprentice, I expect you to do what I say without question. I have already given you a break from your training for your little get together with Knuckles, which seems to have already taken a toll on your obedience. If this keeps happening, I'll have to take away some of your free time during the holidays." Julie was trembling slightly now. If, at that moment, you asked her if she would face Eggman's entire army or her angry assassin teacher, the pink echidna would have faced Eggman's army. Her hand began to shake a little when Shade came nose-to-nose with her. "And if I wanted Auto Fiona dead," she hissed like a poisonous snake, "she would be already bleeding on the floor."

The bionic woman, who had by now retracted her bullet proof fur, stood by Julie's side. Without any sign of fear upon her face, the red head stared at Shade and said, hotly, "Shade, how the hell could you expect Julie-Su to shoot me, a friend, without knowing I wouldn't be harmed? And I've told you, my name is Fina."

Shade stared straight back into Fina eyes, wearing a look of great dislike and loathing, "You have no right to say how I train my apprentice, Auto Fiona. I didn't ask Metal Knuckles to get you to help me and Emerl, and I think it'd be best if you leave the rest to us. If we ever need a live, useless target I'll call you." She then turned her gaze upon the pink echidna, and barked, "Julie-Su! Forty laps around the shooting range, at once!"

With a fleeting mutter of 'thanks for trying' to Fina, the apprentice began her punishment. Now considering that fact that the firing range was like a hurdle race, with a random weapon here and a broken target there, plus the fact Shade doubled the amount of laps if she even saw Julie slow down, the pink echidna was in for a nasty day. The only reason she survived her harsh training these last few years was because of Emerl's tendency to overlook a small mistake that Shade would've marked down as a 'failure of the exercise' and would punish her accordingly.

Turning her back on the bionic woman to observe her student for any signs of weakness, Shade made one last comment at Fina, saying, "Now please be on your way, Auto Fiona. I'm sure there's some problem around the base that needs an attorney's lying tongue."

It was very hard for Fina to resist the urge to charge at the orange-furred echidna and beat the ever living daylights out of her. But the bionic woman knew that Shade wasn't called the 'Living Shadow of the Nocturnes' for nothing. Along with her mastery of martial arts and any form of melee and ranged weapons you can imagine, the orange-furred echidna also had a power, called 'Shadow Eyes'. It didn't matter if you were standing far away from her in the shade of a small house or in the next room with a plant's shadow across your foot, Shade could use her power to find you no matter how hard you tried to hide or run. Just as long as you were in the shadow of an object, for it didn't work with a person's shadow, not counting Shade's own.

So with that in mind, Fina took note of how her feet were bathed in the darkness cast by the shooting range's faulty lights. Any move, or even a thought of movement, would be seen and countered before the half-mutant could even blink.

Gritting her teeth furiously, Fina gave a polite nod to Emerl (who was choosing to keep strategically silent) before turning on her heels to the exit. As the bionic woman opened the door, she saw, out of the corner of her electronic eye, Shade's smirking face, which grew larger when she watched Fina slam the door behind her.

Fuming like a volcano, Fina marched through the corridors of the Nocturne's hideout, muttering curses and death threats to that damn orange echidna. The red head never thought she'd meet someone she hated more than her adoptive sister, Fiona. But from the moment she had met Shade, the echidna had become a strong contender. No matter how hard the bionic woman tried to be civil, the assassin kept finding new ways to infuriate her.

In her angry state of mind, she didn't notice that her feet were taking her to the relaxation hall, the place where the Nocturne's had partied in before the news of the Jacaranda Slaughter had killed the mood. It was mostly empty, since most of the minor gang members were either working up above in the Garden Centre or patrolling the streets for bigots to beat up or extort. Unlike the Suppression Squad, who picked on anyone (though there were times Scourge had personally targeted a random guy to terrorise for the next month), the Nocturne's had a basic policy: give humans and bigots hell and help out mutants and Mobians, by either making sure bigots keep their distance or stop other gangs from shaking down businesses owned by Mobians.

Even though most of them had the same rights as humans, the increases of Half- Mutants, the result of a Human's and a Mobian's intercourse, **(I) **(even if neither of them was a Mutant) had made the poorer Mobians a secondary target for abuse. Most of this was discreetly encouraged by the Church of Solaris. No one knew what had caused the Duke of Soleanna, who was the Head Priest or Pope if you will, to start charging mutants and Mobians for weddings, which could only be paid for if that Mobian or mutant was rich and powerful. But rumours say it had something to do with his daughter, Elise.

But back to the angry, bionic red head, who by now so angry her blue optic eye had subconsciously changed to fiery red. Without paying attention to what she was doing, she practically threw herself onto the couch that faced the TV, still grumbling about Shade. One thing that annoyed her the most-no, angered her, was the assassin's continued use of her nickname. It had been her sister's idea of a joke, not just because of Fina's metal arm and eye, but that the nickname would be a constant reminder of what she had lost, sided with a word that would forever dub her as 'Fina Fox's sister'. It was all because of Fiona's taunts, of knowing what to say to turn Fina into an emotional wreck, which had reduced the bionic woman to work with the Suppression Squad for all these years.

But now she was free of her sister and back in the company of one of her oldest friends. Zackary hadn't really changed at all, despite losing his hands. He was still the teasing, sharpshooting and bullet catching flirt Fina had know all those years ago. But he was still also the guy who showed no mercy to anyone who hurts his friends, the guy who could kill a man while brandishing a wide grin and he was also the guy who still hadn't the courage to flirt with any other girl except Fina.

Speaking of the fellow red head, Zackary had somehow managed to silently sit down beside the angry woman. She only realised that he was there when he silently joked, "I guess this is a bad time to ask you out on a date, huh?"

Fina almost broke her neck with the force she used to snap her head in the direction of the pockmarked man. The moment she recognised Zackary, Fina became relaxed, her electronic eye turning back to a calming azure colour. "Argus, Zackary! When the hell did you learn to be so sneaky?"

A boyish grin shone clearly from M-Knuck's face, since he had finally shaved off his beard when Fina told him blankly that it didn't suit him. "Fina, remember who my team-mates where. Those two were always trying to teach me stealth..."

"...and you kept saying: 'Why should I hide my good looks?'" Recited Fina, smiling softly as her thoughts turned back to the old days. "And Amadeus would always walk in at that moment and say..."

"...'I thought you already were'." The red heads burst into tears of laughter, which echoed around the empty room, making them sound like rabid hyenas. After a minute or two, MK wiped a tear from his eye before saying, in a serious tone, "Ok, mind telling me why you were in such a strop just now?"

Fina pursed her lips and frowned, but thanks to her friend she was no longer writhing with rage. "It's Shade."

Zackary didn't even raise an eyebrow with surprise. "Figures. Shade doesn't like outsiders; especially since you were once part of the SS. Her trust issues have always been shaky ever since the old leader of the Nocturnes, Ix, tried to sell everyone out to Eggman. Plus she hates lawyers with a passion. Even though you never officially became a lawyer, thanks to the bigoted society we live in, Shade probably still thinks you're like one."

"Why?" asked the woman with great interest. Knowing what Shade's problems with her would help either understand the echidna assassin or use it for leverage later. Blackmail wasn't something she liked to use, but Shade's attitude called for desperate measures.

"Because a lawyer killed her parents," muttered Zackary in a dark, disdainful tone. "When Shade was ten years old, her parents were put into a coma before her very eyes. When they caught the bastard and put him on trial, his snob nosed lawyer publicly revealed that Shade's parents were mutants. That night, the doctor who was put in charge of their ward pulled out their life support. The charges were dropped and Shade was left an orphan, all because of one snobbish attorney."

Fina had definitely not expected that. She knew that the legal system was unfair on mutants, but she had never imagined that it took only a couple of words to ruin a child's life. Though Shade's behaviour still infuriated the bionic woman, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the orange echidna. But a sudden thought struck her, which made her ask MK, "The person who beat Shade's parents up, was that...?"

Metal Knuckles' face turned even sourer, as if uttering his reply was like trying to spit out acid, "Yes, it was the same bastard who killed Terri's parents." He spat onto the floor. "If he didn't have his lawyers, the money he brings in from his Casinos or his private army, Mammoth Mogul would be rotting in hell right about now."

Fina gulped and began to discreetly edge away from MK, who seemed to be working himself into a fury. For you see, though it was never brought to public, there had been a string of murder years before the massacre. The person behind it, the loan shark and Gambling King Mogul (who was in fact a mutant), decided to go around on a killing spree, 'Just because he felt like it'.

The bionic woman remembered those bitter words, which had been the finisher of a dark story of bloody murder, like they had just been said for the first time. Along with that, a face began to form in her mind's eye. His short, spiky black hair, a constant look that read 'the day I laugh is the day the world ends' and his dark cunning eyes; that was what Terri Cooper looked like before he turned into Metal Sonic.

Unlike most anti-mutants, Terri's reasons for distrusting Mutants had a firm base that didn't involve superstition or peer pressure. Mammoth Mogul, using his powers on a pointless whim, had beaten and killed many parents to the point of death right before a child's eyes, and Terri was one of them. From then on, he had a low tolerance for mutants. He didn't pick on them for fun, but if he caught two people near a crime scene, he'd look at the Mutant's alibi and would try his best to pick it apart. And if he caught a mutant who had used his powers to hurt people, all for a cheap laugh, then it would take the combined efforts of his team-mates to stop Terri from tearing the mutant apart.

But he hadn't been completely bigoted. After all, he had given Fina and Amadeus a chance... or did he always despised them and only tolerated them because they were the friends with Zackary and—

"Where's Welshscot?"

Fina and Zackary were both pulled from their thoughts by the unexpected question and the unexpected owner it belonged to. As one, still sitting on the sofa, their eyes all turned to the purple, pyrokinetic feline, Blaze the cat. Wearing her usual attire and mixed expression of urgency, curiosity and (though it was very faint) fury, the royalist stood before the red heads with folded arms.

Metal Knuckles was quick to realise why she was after the hybrid, in fact he was wondering what had kept her for so long. Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, the gang leader replied, "He left days ago for the Knotcorn Garage. He told me to give you this..." He pulled out a folded yellow letter, which looked slightly crumpled on the corners. "...When you came asking for him." Before MK gave the letter to Blaze, he said sincerely, "Can I just say, Lady Violet, that whatever you read in this letter will be truthful and sincere. I know..." He glanced quickly at Fina, who noticed it without fail, before continuing, "...t-this man, the one who... did you wrong and despite the horrible things he's done, he still has a bigger heart than most of the people I've ever known."

Blaze didn't reply to MK's plea, but she did seem to handle the letter with more care than she had planned. After she quietly unfolded the piece of paper, her eyes began to slowly trail the words that had been left for her by her mother's murderer. While MK went oddly silent, as if even a word might spark some kind of reaction that did not involve the pyro cat, Fina kept a sharp, bionic eye on Blaze's face.

Her eye, her metal eye, had some small quirks that made losing her real eye more bearable. When it was blue, the civil/analysis mode, it could perform info scans on just about anything. Her info storage was built into her bionic arm and it contained detailed DNA structures and sound patterns of all known substances she had found or met, and it was still only a quarter full. The last function, in the civil mode, was a polygraph, a very glitchy and unreliable polygraph, but a polygraph all the same. It didn't tell Fina what emotion a person was feeling, but she could still make rough guesses from the heart rate metre on her eye scope and it still did what polygraphs do, detect lies.

Well the lie detector wasn't going to be useful, but combined with Blaze's heart rate and the small expressions the bionic woman managed to pick up, Fina would be able to get some insight on this mysterious letter that MK never told her about. Or that was her plan, before her blasted eye decided to break.

She suppressed an urge to curse when her half her sight decided to vanish, leaving the rest to be blurred like a burning photo. In the pretence of shifting some of her hair so it didn't cover her ear, she discreetly managed to press the small reboot button on the metal plating that covered the area around her electronic eye and the lower part of her right temple.

In the time it took for her vision to become whole, the royal cat had long since finished the letter. Her eyes were still upon the letter, but they were too busy trying to read her own mess of emotions. Zackary was still looking agitated, his acid green eyes darting from his metallic digits to Fina face from out of the corner of his eyes and his heart rate was bouncing all over the place. It was no surprise that when a door banged open, both MK and Blaze jumped like Jack-in-the-boxes. But they were soon calmed, as Marine came skidding to a halt behind the sofa, panting hard.

"Blaze- mate- I swear... tell ya... sooner..." The purple cat didn't say a word to Marine, the letter still fresh in her memory, but she gave the raccoon a soft shake of the head, which ask her not to worry. Surprised and glad that her friend wasn't angry again, the raccoon literally collapsed in exhaustion, toppling forwards over the sofa and unintentionally kicking Zackary in the face.

Rubbing the sore side of his head, MK scowled and growled, "Hey, watch were ya feet are going, ya ring tailed scamp!" Marine, who must have tried to run after Blaze (who could sometimes give Sonic a run for his money), barely had the strength to retort to the pockmarked red head. She instead made a rude hand gesture, which caused a tick to rise on Zackary's forehead. "Hmph, kids today. No manners and crap comebacks. In my day, we didn't resort to the ol' flick when we collapsed on the ground. We would crane our necks up at the growling drill instructor and say, 'Look you, I've already run the distance you told me to run. If I want to lie on my back, I'll lie on my back. But if it's my buttocks you want then tough luck... unless you fancy a bit of head...'"

Fina giggled, but only because Marine finally understood the joke. Upside down on the sofa, she pulled a face before toppling off completely, screeching, "EWW, METAL KNUCKLES, THAT WAS PERVERTED!"

The red head shrugged, "Don't shoot the messenger, it's not my joke. Welshscot told me that it's a guaranteed way of curing tiredness in teens and also a way of checking for homophobes. Since your eye brows rose in surprise as you began to picture me in that situation, followed by a small blush that was covered up by a fake look of disgust, I'd say you're a closet yaoi fan." **(II)**

While Marine, who was indeed tired-less, began to rant at MK, Fina drew her attention back to the yellow letter. Turning to Blaze, who was still in her own world of emotions, the bionic woman asked, tentatively, "Excuse me, Blaze, but can I read that?"

Again the Cat didn't speak, but the pyro absent-mindedly nodded, handing over the paper without really knowing what she was doing. With a small nod of gratitude, the red headed woman began to position the letter before her eyes. Though her bionic eye's scanner was faulty, her real eye was surprised to see a hand writing that seemed oddly familiar. Hardly impressive but still better than a scribble, the way the writer crossed his t's with a slanted line and dot the i's with a half dot was nagging her like hell. Knowing truth could only be found by pressing onwards, Fina leaned forwards and began to take in the words:

_Dear Miss Blaze the cat,  
><em>

_As Zackary or Welshscot would have told you, I am the man people know as the Tails Doll. Though, after all I've done, 'man' is something I wonder when I ponder on what I've become. I wish I could speak to you in person, but that ability was one of the many things that were robbed from me when I became who or what I am today. _

_Just to make things clear to you, to help you understand why I do what I do, the rumours you might have heard about me are true: I am indeed dead. At first I thought I was a zombie, a walking corpse you see in a cheap horror flick. But after meeting Welshscot, who might I add was the first person to look past my mask and talk to the real me; I've discovered that zombies, believe it or not, do exist. _

_Souls of the long dead or of un-rested spirits can be captured by Shadow Voodooists and be used to reanimate the dead person's body to be used for slave labour. They are not rotting and mouldy corpses, but they can look like any normal person. But the difference between me and a zombie is that I still have a shadow; which, by Voodoo belief, means that I still have my soul. A zombie is a tool to be used, their souls are locked away inside the darkest places with their hearts; hence why a zombie can only be killed by stabbing their heart._

_I have stabbed myself many times in the heart; I even tried to crush it with my own hands. But death still refuses to claim me, and my heart soon returns to normal; sitting behind a rib cage, as still as the grave I had sometimes wished for during the first weeks of my resurrection. I couldn't stand it, and still can't stand the fact that my speech has been cursed to recite my favourite song, 'Can you feel the Sunshine'. Without the ability to talk, people would run from my face; the burnt stitching, the only thing that keeps it all together, scared all who came near. _

_You can believe if it comforts you, that I only started killing because I went mad. Well, that maybe true, but never has killing been something I enjoy. I killed because I had to, that was my job when I was normal. But back then I was forced to protect sneering polotions and bigoted nobles who cared more for their next meal then the affairs of the little people, the persecuted people. Mutants, as long as Eggman and people like him live, will never have justice. They will always be the ones who get taken into a side-alley and beaten up, raped and murdered; with no law to protect them. _

_So I decided to put my immortality to good use. I decided to provide the justice that Mutants will never receive from a court of law. I decided to protect the poor, forgotten people and strike terror into those who believe they are superior because of genes and money._

_Though I admit that I am brutal, I still try and keep the standards I up held during my normal life. Losing control and hurting innocents is something I shall never forgive of myself. And to you, and your parents, I have committed just that._

_I will say now that I fully intended to kill your mother, Lume, for she committed a crime that is unforgivable. I was there when the robots attacked the cemetery, I saw how they uprooted trees and broke open coffins, defiling the burial place of all who have lost their lives to the same greed that tore there resting grounds asunder. I would've taken care of those robots myself, but my eyes fell upon a sight which made my blood boil. A 'man' I once knew, or thought I knew, that you know as Metal Sonic. _

_After giving chase, which turned out to be fruitless, I found myself outside of a warehouse in the Docks. Inside, after hearing rage of an old man, I found a broken robot that was one of the same ones used to level the graveyard. After interrogation, he gave me one name: your mother's name._

_So from there I went to Violet Manor, to punish your mother and to find out who else was part of the conspiracy behind the cemetery attack. Until I found your Mother in her study, I didn't regret the blood I had spilt. Many of the guards I had seen before—one in particular, called Cubot Orbot, had worked for Eggman and had taken part in the Massacre many years ago. Cubot is one of the only people I've killed during my time as the Tails Doll that I have taken pleasure in doing so. My family has suffered enough by his hands._

_On that note, I thank you for your saving Miles from that bigoted piece of trash. I was about to intervene, but the distraction you provided gave him the opening he needed. He has grown so much, and I have been distant to him for all these years..._

_But back to the matter at hand; when I had your mother in my grip I made her revile what she had done. Not only had she given Eggman warehouse to keep his robots close by the graveyard, but she was also tasked with buying the church land for a new racing course. There was also a mention of a garden, which I will investigate later._

_I was about to kill her there and then, but as I raised the knife, I saw you glinting off the steel of my blade. It was a reflection of your family portrait, standing outside your Manor with happy faces on all your faces. I know what it's like to be an orphan, so I try and stay my hand on behalf of their happiness whenever I can. She was a traitor to her kind, but she was still your mother and your father's wife. _

_Before I let her go, she gave me two names, two other conspirators. I tell you this for your benefit and the benefit of Zackary and Welshscot; for the enemy must be known. Captain Whiskers, second in command of the Coconut Crew and Smuggling leader, and Adam Mecha, the popular news announcer who controls most forms of the Media, are in league with Eggman. Captain organised the shipments of robots and Adam made it look like an accident on the news, which we both know is untrue. _

_I swear to you that I was leaving, my hand was on the doorknob, but your mother, by some foolish urge of pride, began to try and taunt me with predications of my failures to kill Whiskers and Adam. I ignored all of them, until she jeered that Eggman, after he was finished with the Medics, was going to send Metal Sonic after Miles. _

_You can't understand the anger I felt. When Miles was born, Rosemary gave Terri, Metal Sonic, the honour to be the first to hold the new born fox. It was thanks to me and her that he and Zackary had people to call a family. And how has he repaid us all? He killed me, burnt me alive and threw me into the very house we called home, and now he was going to kill the last piece of family I have left? _

_Before I knew what I was doing, my hands were soon covered with your mother's blood. And as I wondered how things could get worse, your father walked into the study. As he began to sob over the fate of his wife, I was again forced to remain silent by the blasted curse that bounds my speech. Your father, out of mad grief, pulled a sword from the study wall and lunged._

_Now I swear the only time I laid a hand on your father was to check if he was still alive. When he tried to attack me, I dogged his attack since I didn't want to add innocent blood to my list of guilt. But I had forgotten about the windows behind me, to my horror and your father's terror, he crashed right through the panes of glass. He may not have perished, but sometimes death is a better alternative than a suppressed life of misery or pain. Fortunately, your father will not suffer physically. But I still apologize for depriving him of the ability to walk. _

_I am not asking you to forgive me, I just want to explain myself the only way I can. I have torn your life apart, and I know what it feels like. Zackary knows what it's like to lose his parents, so does Welshscot and all your friends—especially Miles. And like them, when they felt such a great loss, they lash out at the world. _

_Sometimes it breaks a bond forever, leaving us alone and friendless, or sometimes it can strengthen it, bring friends and enemies closer. So I say to you: don't lose your friends because of my mistakes, my failures. Though I can never truly make up for my mistakes, I promise that I will do my best to protect you and your friends. And in return, look after them. Miles will need a strong hand to guide him and, if he's anything like his mother, smack him around the head when his clever plans get placed ahead of his friends' needs. And, though it sounds surprising, keep an eye on Welshscot. What you see of him now is just a shadow of his former self, which is slowly trying to bleed back though. He may like to help the lives of others, but he rebukes anyone who tries to help him with his own life. _

_Again, my deepest apologise_

_Signed—_

BANG!

Fina, who was just about to finish the last line of the letter, jumped from of the couch as she heard lead meeting floor. Spinning round, dropping the letter as she did so, she turned her gaze back down upon the couch. It seems that while she was reading the Tails Doll's letter, Zackary and Marine had gotten into a row of sorts, which resulted in a stare off between the man and the raccoon. Blaze, having either contemplated her thoughts or decided that she had nothing better to do, tried to stop it by pushing them away from each other. But the feline's hand had managed to brush against MK's gun belt; which thanks to her pyro aura caused a spare bullet to explode.

Luckily, the small explosion only caused a blackened stain upon MK's clothes. But the red head was still in a towering temper. He pointed at Marine, who was nervously backing away from said man, and roared, "You bloody minx! All I did was just a little joke, and you managed to blow it up into an argument, and now this!"

Marine, who was still backing away, hastily replied, "W-well I d-didn't find it funny. A-an it weren't my fault..."

But MK cut across her. "Violet wouldn't have made a mistake if you hadn't been such so fussy. Now, unless you want me to show you why I was called the 'Happy-Trigger of the Metalix', you'll get me a new gun belt from the storage room, ASAP!" No surprising, Marine shot from the room like a bullet; driven by the fear of such projectiles raining down upon her.

Blaze, who had kept unnaturally silent since the moment of the mini explosion, decided to go with her friend. Without a word to Fina or Zackary, she picked up the letter, pocketed it and turned to follow the dust clouds the raccoon had left. MK didn't object and respectfully remained silent until the cat's tail had vanished from the sight.

But if he been expecting some piece and quite, he was dead wrong. The moment he had fallen back onto the sofa, Fina had moved in front of him, her real eye a light with a questioning fury. With her metallic arm, she pointed at the door Blaze had left by, and heatedly asked, "Zackary, who the hell is the Tails Doll!" Before he could reply, she added, sharply, "Don't even think about lying to me! I will know if you're lying to me, because of my Polygraph implant!"

"Whoever wrote that letter knew that me, your old team the Metalix brothers and Rosemary were friends. They also knew about things that only we knew like who was there when Miles was born, that we were all orphans, except me since Fiona's parent adopted me before I met all of you, and especially Miles' name—because most people know him as Tails! And, judging by the fact that he made mince meat of the Violet Manor guards, he was highly trained like you were! Not to mention the strong sense of justice, that he was killed by Terri and the fact that 'Can you feel the sunshine' was his favourite song..." Tears were beginning to steam down her cheeks, as her organic eye began to turn red and puffy. Wiping them with her real arm, she looked down at MK and pleaded, "Zackary...please...I need to know...Is it...?"

The pock-marked man diverted his eyes from the woman's tear strewn face. A battle seemed to rage within him, as dark thoughts seemed to battle against one another. Finally, after taking a deep breath, he looked back into Fina's eyes, which were both red due to her crying, and muttered, solemnly, "Fina...What I said was true. Daemon is dead..." He took a deep, steadying breath. "The Tails Doll...is Miles –father..."

Her real eye blinked, while her other eye examined the heart monitor on her eye's screen. It had not spiked when he said those words, meaning that he was telling the truth, and that the Tails Doll is...

"Amadeus! Miles's father?" She stood there, utterly bewildered, before saying, "No, it can't be him. Amadeus wasn't killed by Terri..."

"It's him," butted in Zackary; whose face became rigid and tight. "Contrary to most rumours, we didn't discover Eggman's plan was a massacre until we arrived on the scene when he gave us the order to torch the houses. Most people think it happened in the Egg Fortress because people say that Terri turned Daemon into a living weapon; so they think he got put into a machine or something like that. But what it really meant was that Terri disarmed Daemon, poured the gun powder from Daemon's own gun over him along with some cheap whiskey that he took off from that damned Orbot bastard and shot him into a Chuck's old house; igniting the lot in an instant."

He gripped his bionic hands as anger shot through him. "I would've torn him apart there and then if the other guards hadn't tried to stop me. Took me three minutes to shake 'em off; giving Terri time to escape. I reckon he did the same thing to Amadeus before I caught up with him. And through him into his own house..." Zackary punched the sofa and roared, "That fucking, traitorous bigot; I bet he enjoyed killing them both!"

It took time for him to calm down, breathing in and out in a slow rhythm. When he finished, he continued in a calmer tone, "I never would have thought that he would come back from the dead. When I first saw him, I thought that someone had stolen his skin and had decided to wear it for some messed up joke. Turns out that Amadeus' face had been so badly damaged that someone had to stitch his skin into a mask and his eyes were so badly scarred that someone also covered them with black doll buttons."

And I knew it was him because he knew stuff that only we knew; like you said..." His acid eyes then when out of focus, like he was remembering a long forgotten dream. "What his favourite song was and the first time he'd heard it, the day we all met in the orphanage (except you) and even Rosemary's first idea for Miles' name: Trevor."

He grinned, boyishly, as other such memories drifted through his head. Fina, meanwhile, was still in a world full of uncertainty. Though her Polygraph showed that her friend wasn't lying, she still couldn't picture Amadeus as the Tails Doll. But truth be told, she didn't picture Daemon, her dead lover, as the killer either. But it wasn't because of what he does, kill people mercilessly; it was the idea that they were suffering this fate; a bloody existence that was almost cut off from all forms of friendship.

"That's why you didn't tell me... or Miles," Fina uttered softly.

He nodded. "He didn't want Miles to know what he had become, or you. And I thought, that maybe, you might think that there was a way to bring Daemon..." He trailed off; hanging his head in shame.

Fina sat down beside him and gave him a gentle hug. She leaned into MK's ear and whispered, "Its okay, that's how I might have reacted if I had found out. But I would never wish for Daemon to share the same fate as Amadeus. It would be too cruel to wish that upon anyone..."

Zackary nodded slowly, whilst retuning Fina's embrace. After a minute or two, the male red head leaned towards Fina's ear and asked, humorously, "So...does this mean the date is possible?"

Fina laughed, a smile now stretching across her face. "Yes," she replied; in a friendly, flirtatious tone. "But only...if you apologize to Marine."

The ex-guard nodded as he and Fina broke apart. "Ok, I was planning on doing that anyways. I remember how Alina reacted when Welsh first used his therapy games on her."

Before the bionic woman could ask who Alina was, she suddenly felt a presences right behind her. Sensing it also, Zackary and Fina both leapt to their feet and turned around; both ready to face the unknown intruder...

Zackary's face seemed to crumple, while Fina could only gasp and stare, as their eyes fell upon the Tails Doll. The bionic woman's heart beat monitor was showing nothing and, because of the broken mute button that linked to her ear drum, was giving off a flat-line. Her real eye, on the other hand, was examining the tacky stitches, the burnt fur and black button eyes; which all formed a twisted version of the face she had once known. The only difference being the jewel topped antenna and the large trench coat, Fina could clearly see that it was Miles father, Amadeus.

Since his face had been turned into a mask, Amadeus could show no expression as he pointed his button eyes at the red haired woman. He didn't even move a muscle as Fina began to circle the sofa; her eyes still examining her long lost friend. The Tails Doll did turn to face her when she was in an arm's reach, which didn't startle or scare her in the slightest.

When she was right in front of him, the top of head just above the level of TD's sightless buttons, she whispered to him, in a scared yet amazed tone, "Amadeus, is it really you? Can you recognise me?" He did not respond for a few moments, still as rigged as a board, before slowly nodding his head. Fina automatically threw her arms around him, embracing the dead man in a tight, loving hug, whilst joyfully saying, "Oh my gosh, it really is you! Zackary told me what happened to you...and I'm sorry for what has happened to you...but I'm still really glad to see you again!"

Amadeus' mask was as blank as a dictionary, but the amount of emotion he put into his hug told Fina that he was also glad to see her again. They broke apart, Fina smiling warmly while TD just remained still like an awkward school boy being kissed for the first time. Many questions were running through the bionic woman's head, but none were heard because her eye implant began to chime the 'Diamond in the Sky' song. After quickly whispering an apology to the trench-coated man, she pressed a button which caused a text message to pop up on the screen.

After quickly reading it, she muttered, apologetically, "Sorry, Amadeus, but the mechanics downstairs need me to fix their gears—again. I swear that if it wasn't for me, Shade, Julie, Emerl and Zackary would've never won their races." She gave him another hug before she began to leave for the garage. "I'll be back as soon as I can—And Zackary..." She turned at the door and shouted, "...I'll meet you at Omega Milkshake bar at seven, ok?"

Zackary, who had been avoiding TD's gaze, smiled sheepishly and nodded rather hurriedly. He kept his smile until Fina had closed the door. When he did, he turned to the trench coated man...and found that he was now towering over him. MK was taken by surprise, but he did not make a sound. After a few moments of silence, in which Amadeus continued to stare at the red headed man, Zackary finally burst out, "Yes, I told her—I didn't have a choice, ok? She read the letter—I couldn't..." He looked away, expecting to feel a blast of anger any time soon. But after a few seconds of nothing, MK turned back to TD...and he was gone.

Zackary's heart beat began to slow down. If TD had been angry that he had told Fina, he would have punched him right now. MK knew that because he knew TD like the back of his hand. So that was also why he looked around for...

He spotted it, on the couch he had just been sitting on. He wasted no time in picking it up and raising it to his eyes. And it took no time to understand what TD was about to do...

_Watch the news tomorrow at ten. It will not come from the usual den._

_Do not be surprised by what you see. Omochao will do admirably._

_For tonight my friend I go to work. Tough I still think you are a jerk._

_For telling tales I don't want told. At least, forgive me, it wasn't sold._

_But now I go for the damned. Adam Mecha will die by my hand._

* * *

><p>AN: Hmm... I wonder what it means? Anyway, I can see that my Asylum has caught up with me. Until next time, I, and probably XX|D, hope you have a great life :)

**domi|note: **And remember to review! (As Christmas presents.)


	22. The City is at War

**domi|note: **Ah, The Aloe Heist, finally, as well as the corresponding Iron Domain Kidnapping. Action and the like for you wonderful people. I don't really know about you, but I am in _love_ with this chapter's title. Thank you, Cobra Starship!

Long chapter ahead, clear your schedules. :P

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **Cross The Fox**, **Exploder**, **Undead009**, **SmallSpek**, **LordCooler**, **superechidna**, **deadlynxwalking** and **Subzero Inferno** for reviewing the last chapter.

_deadlynxwalking- _Yes, Sir! :p (Or Ma'am)

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Teamwork is essential- it allows you to blame someone else. ~Author Unknown<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twenty Two  
>.<em>  
>"And it's playtime for the young and rich. Ignore me if you see me 'cause I just don't give a shit. The city is at war. Bless the young and rich, with designer drugs and designer friends."<br>…_  
>Written by WelshScot<em>

* * *

><p>The Great Hall of the Freedom Fighters HQ was buzzing with a mixed sense of excitement and concentration. On the right hand side, most of the lower ranking FFs were sitting at the dining tables; eating and drinking while exchanging news and gossip. On the other side, some of the lieutenants were typing away at computers or drawing on diagrams that had the blueprints of the Iron Domain Whore House. They; Welshscot, Nicole and Antoine, were all planning how the FF would take the city's number one home of pleasure down. Over the past two years, both the vigilante gang and medic had been collecting intel. Finding every detail that could help spell the downfall of The Iron Domain.<p>

Meanwhile, on the side of feasting and relaxation a Mobian tiger, who wore a black vest, shirt and black track pants, was tucking into a plate of salmon, until he was interrupted when someone poked him in the ribs. Annoyed at being taken from his meal, the tiger turned to the left and faced a pink feathered flamingo Mobian, who wore a deep red tank top and dark blue skirt. The flamingo was a newcomer in the gang and the tiger- under orders- was her mentor, which was turning out to be quite the bother.

After getting the tiger's attention, the female bird pointed at Welshscot, who was drawing out a plan of attack for the upcoming assault on a white board, and asked curiously, "Hey, Kelp, who's that ginger over there, the one with the bandaged right arm?"

Kelp turned around and saw who she was talking about. Turning back, he replied in a surprised tone, "Come on, you telling me you've never heard about that guy? Are you new to Crisis or something?"

She nodded, her face screwed up in concentration, "Yea, I'm really new to this place. I only got here last week."

Kelp's eye began to twitch with annoyance, "Ever heard of a rhetorical question before, Nancy?"

She shook her head, completely oblivious to the jab at her intelligence, "Nope, never heard of it. And my name is actually Lacy."

_Wings of Enlil, _thought the tiger, _despite being so pink, she is so bloody blonde. _Deciding that answering her question might get her off his back for a bit; Kelp sighed and began to explain. "Alright, that guy's name is Welshald Scottmen. You might have heard of him as 'Welshscot', 'Welsh-Doc' or 'that ginger hybrid who drinks too much.'" Lacy began to giggle violently, but managed to stop herself before the hybrid heard her.

Kelp continued his explanation, "Anyways, that guy is a freelance medic and psychiatrist. He isn't part of the FF since we've got Doctor Quack, nor is he a member of the Nocturnes because they got a hippy chick called Tikal, but he helps out with both gangs. Unlike Tikal and Quack, he's a dab hand in combat. His right arm- the bandaged one- is bullet proof and he has a power to go berserk off Scotch Whiskey-"

Lacy started to giggle again, something that Kelp found both annoying and cute. When she finally stopped, by grabbing her beak, she whispered, "His power is to go crazy while being drunk?"

"He can also breathe fire if he drinks Welsh wine."

Lacy couldn't help herself. Her laughter drew the attention of all the other people eating, until Kelp grabbed her beak again. He pulled off a false grin to the others, muttering apologies until the others returned to their plates. The tiger released the flamingo's beak, and she immediately began to rub it soothingly. "Ow, what'd you do that for?"

Kelp shrugged, "One thing you gotta learn in this city- drawing attention to yourself is not a smart move."

Lacy, with a feathered hand still upon her beak glared at the tiger, but didn't reply to his comment. Instead she changed the subject by asking, "So, how did he get to tag along with the FF, or the Nocturnes for that matter, if he's just a medic?"

Kelp rolled his eyes, "Come on, ain't it obvious?" When she didn't reply, he added, "He's a pro-mutant medic, and a damn good one."

"So what?" she replied, "There's a thing called a hospital; or better still a doctor who is trained and qualified."

Kelp could not believe his ears, or how stupid this bird brain was. When he responded, he did so _slowly_, in the way a teacher would talk to a kindergartener, "Lacy, we all live in a city that is practically ruled by an evil, mutant hating Omelette. He has influence in the Royal Court, most businesses and public services, including the hospitals. Now, with that in mind, don't you think it's suicidal for a mutant to go to a hospital?"

The flamingo shook her head, "No, because all doctors are saints. It doesn't matter about Eggman. They help people and that's what they do."

Kelp found it hard to say if this girl's naivety was funny or just pathetic, "Lacy, doctors are like any other person. And since most of them are humans, who mostly hate our guts-"

But Lacy interrupted, saying hotly, "No, doctors are saints and that's a fact!"

"I wouldn't 'gree with that, Hon."

Kelp and Lacy both jumped in their seats in surprise. The owner of the voice chuckled as she sat down, a soft thud was heard when she rested her bionic arm upon the table. While adjusting her brown cowgirl hat, Bunnie Rabbot looked at the flamingo and stated, "I've seen doctors do some purty nasty things. There was a guy called Finitevus, once the head of Crisis Hospital, and he took Mobians off the streets to perform experiments on 'em. I saw one of the poor critters after he'd done with 'em. Had his eyes gouged out and his limbs laced with wood and lead; while blood dripped from 'is wounds. An' the worst part is that he was still alive after Finitevus' butchery."

Both the tiger and the flamingo shivered, as their minds unwillingly pictured that person's body; lying on a blood stained hospital bed. The rabbit closed her eyes, before continuing her speech. "Anyways, for the record Hon, Welsh is a fully qualified Doctor; studied at the old university an' all. And the day he calls himself a saint is the day he don't get an allergic reaction from English stuff." She pointed behind her at his bandaged arm. "And I'd keep your voices down if I were you. Welshscot had to use some English wine a couple of days ago—caused his scales to go all flaky."

Kelp glanced around and was just in time to see the hybrid raise his hand to the top of the white board he was at. When his arm was fully stretched, the tiger managed to make out a small gap in the bandages. While some of the scales were green, you could see a few white a withered fragments that looked rotting and old. "So his hate for all things English isn't just a natural stereotype," asked Kelp, jokingly.

Bunnie smiled weakly, and shook her head. Lacy still looked disgruntled about how her belief, which doctors were blameless heroes, now seemed foolish so she didn't react to Kelp's words. Bunnie, as an after though then added, "Welsh is also a priest, if you could believe it."

Kelp snorted. "What? That guy's a priest? No offense, Boss, but that's a little hard to believe."

Bunnie straightened her bionic arm before assuring, "Well ah am tellin' the truth. You see, because his Ma, Marsali the Dragon-Scottmen, disappeared from the public eye, all the titles she once held fell to Welsh's hands..."

Once more, Lacy interrupted; with a gasp, saying, "Wait, do you mean Priestess Marsali, the old head of the Cult of Argus?"

Kelp, who was surprised that the flamingo knew more about religion than politics, replied, "Yes, that's who she's talking about. She's also Welshscot's mom."

Again, Lacy gasped, "Welshscot is a devil worshiper?" Before Kelp could ask, the bird explained, "If he's the son of that witch, and is a priest of the cult, then he must worship Argus the Destroyer!"

Bunnie began to growl at the pink flamingo, flexing her bionic fingers in annoyance. When she addressed Lacy, the bionic bunny gave a look of great dislike that warned the new FF not to interrupt. "Now listen 'ere, if you go round calling him a devil worshiper you ain't gonna last long, in the FF or anywhere else. Welshscot has done a lot for the mutants and Mobians of this city, many of 'em owes him their lives.

And you say that the Cult of Argus are devil worshipers? True, some believers like to dabble with the darker side of Voodoo, but not all of them do that. And the cult ain't like tha money grabbin' Church of Solaris, they preach because they believe, not because they want to make a quick ring or two."

Lacy's brow furrowed as a hint of anger shone from her eyes. She folded her arms and muttered firmly, "The Church of Solaris are not money grabbers. All the charities they organize, like they do in my home town, go straight to the poor and unfortunate, like Mutants-"

Rabbot couldn't help herself. She gave off a short laugh that was not of humour, a laugh which drew the attention of the other FFs who were eating. Nicole and Antoine, who had been typing furiously at their computers, stopped to look at the bionic limbed woman. Only Welshscot, who by now was pressing his nose against some blueprints, seemed oblivious to the the argument.

Bunnie finally replied, in a cool tone, "If they help mutants, why do they ban mutants from all their cathedrals? Where does all the money really go? I don't see any organisation handing it out as far as ah see. Hell, unless you're wealthy, you can't get married in this hell hole of a city."

Lacy's blue eyes blinked as confusion shone from her face, "But how come you're married, if they don't let Mobians marry unless they pay?"

Antoine, who had lost interest in his work and wandered over to his wife, answered, "We wouldn't have done, if not for Welshscot. When we got turned away by ze head priest, ze Duke of Soleanna, Welshscot offered to perform ze service. Twas five years ago, I bezieve, and Welsh had just gotten publicly named ze Head Priest of Argus by ze Royal Court. Twas his first interaction with us, ze Freedom Fighters, before that incident with Nicole." Everyone, except the ginger, shivered slightly. Nicole herself began to clench and un-clench her fist, trying to block out bad memories. Antoine soon broke the silence by continuing his tale. "Anywayz, Welsh held our marriage in ze Cult's only chapel, ze Diamond Dust. Twas very memorable, ze sounds of all zose sparkling fountains and water lilies. And as far as moi aware, mutants and Mobians are still married there; by a priest called..." He frowned, trying to remember his name.

"Raito Gaia."

Everyone jumped with shock; causing some to actually knock of their plates of food of the table. Ignoring the mess of gravy and potato on the floor, all eyes fell upon Welshscot, who appeared to have been listening the whole time. His face as blank as paper, the hybrid's grey eyes were fixed upon Lacy, who seemed to shrink under his emotionless gaze.

He soon started speaking again, his voice as blank as his face as he said, "Most people know him as Chip, due to his ice cream addiction. I don't have time to help people and manage the church at the same time, so he stands in my place as a favour for saving his brother Darken, that ungrateful shit."

The medic then sat across from Lacy, who was now feeling completely embarrassed and outnumbered, "Miss Lacy," began Welsh in a soft and steady tone, "your priests from your hometown may be, as you say, wonderful and generous people. But here, in Crisis, I'm afraid the holy men of Solaris care more about filling their own stomachs than the ones of the poor and persecuted." The flamingo still looked disgruntled, as she nervously glanced at the hybrid. So still in the same tone, he reassured, "Now, none of us are forcing you to stop believing in your religion. I respect that people have a choice to believe what they want. But remember this; though someone claims to speak the word of God, there's still a chance of the true message being lost in the words of man."

Lacy, for some reason, seemed to be calmed by these words as they were slowly processed in her brain. She shyly nodded, her pink feathers turning a deeper shade around her cheeks. Kelp, who was still by her side, gave her a small pat on the back in an attempt to comfort her.

Having calmed the situation, Welshscot rose from the table and turned to the mixed crowd of Mobians, "What are you lot standing around for, eh?" asked the hybrid in a commanding tone, "Your lunch is getting cold and we've all got to prepare for tomorrow's assault. Get back to your plates, and someone clean up that mess. I'm sure none of us want to see Sally if she finds out that we left a mess in her precious Hall. If it wasn't for the fact that the base is wider than her hips, I'd say this place was her baby."

A ripple of laugher shot through the crowd, before it soon dispersed. Antoine and Bunnie both went back to planning for the attack upon the Iron Domain and most of the low ranking FF sat back down in their seats, while one made his way to the kitchen to find a dustpan and brush.

Welshscot and Nicole were about to join the wedded couple, when Rotor came rushing into the Great Hall, his yellow cap positioned oddly upon his head. Stopping in front of the hybrid and hacker, he pushed up his glasses and panted, "Welsh-Scot. I've… examined… Fiona's gun. Sally… wants you… and Nicole… to come… to the lab." The ginger and the lynx nodded and began to make their way out of the hall; slowing down to let Rotor catch his breath.

As they left and closed the huge doors behind them Lacy turned her beak to Kelp and asked, cheerily, "So, are you gonna eat your meal or not?"

The tiger blinked, and then cried, "Crap!" He looked down at his plate, which held food that was as cold and disgusting as garbage. Lacy scratched her head and stated, "Well, Kelp, it seems you get distracted easily."

She then, using her new found wisdom, sprang from the table and began to run for her life, as a very angry tiger armed with a snarl and a cold plate, began to give chase.

* * *

><p><em>xx.d; Ave Maria <em>by P!nk

* * *

><p>The skyline in the distance was a fanned pallet of distorted technicolour. The hues bled into the mountains and the thin band of burnt orange fell away to a curtain of midnight blue. On this starless night, Jet stared at the haze of half star before the light winked out and disappeared; they were in business.<p>

_The best thefts happen at the times of the day ending with 'ight', _Jet mused, watching the twilight darken as he waited for his communicator to come alive with someone's voice. Unfortunately for the green bird, he didn't have the time to stare at the sky and wonder when his team would contact him because footsteps increased in volume and rapidity as they moved his way.

The leader of The Babylon Rogues stood this evening at the edge of a wharf attached to a street that was silent, save the trickle of running water from a nearby fountain and the murmur of sweet nothings between a couple at a closing café, dim with flickering candles and gentle tangelo lamp light. This part of New City greatly resembled Apotos, with white and blue cobblestone paths and ivy creeping up the smooth stone walls. It looked beautiful, even at this time of the day, but Jet would admit that the quiet bordered on the edge of eerie, he had even started hoping that a Pawn or The Egg Patrols would pass by to break up the needlessly tense atmosphere.

In a whisper he was hidden behind one of the stone fences, waiting for the footsteps to fade, feathers rustling against the barely-there breeze as his breath hitched. He didn't need to be seen by anyone but his team, communicating with anyone else was unnecessary. He pressed his head up against the tall stone wall, head perking up when he recognised the panting, the memorable slide of- what he assumed- were ruddy old sneakers, and the jangle of beaded hemp bracelets.

"He's meant to be somewhere around here."

He stood up when he'd heard Wave's voice, clear as a bell in the near silence of this small, peaceful part of the city. They saw him instantly, but neither looked confused as to why he was hiding behind a stone wall. Heartnet, hair and clothes tousled from running, was practically shaking with fright, knees and elbows shuddering violently as he tried to right himself. Wave was clad in her normal 'major heist' attire, which consisted of mottled black and grey clothing; shirt, jacket, trousers, boots and a backpack. She'd pulled down the zip from her jacket though, her hood falling down so that her hair fell out. She was also in a similar state.

"What happened?" he asked them, true concern and mild irritation weaving its way into his vocal tone. He eyed the backpack that the fox was wearing, knowing its contents already; he was going to borrow it after all.

Their breaths came in shallow and ragged as Wave tried to form an articulate answer, "We saw… stupid and-freaking… _Enlil-_" he watched in worry as she visibly shivered, the swear crooked and staggered on her tongue, bright blue eyes going wide with fear.

"-onic," Caleb's words were ragged as he tried to regain his footing, "I didn't k-know… read robots, but- _dammit_- fuck… he was…"

"None of you are making any sense, and you're really worrying me. What the fuck happened?" he snarled, getting impatient with them.

"We saw Metal Sonic, okay?" Wave's outburst was a slur of words, but Jet could understand all of them, "He looked- um, like he'd just taken damage but…"

Caleb shook his head, pushing back his fringe as if it was a living creature, bent on annoying him to death, "He wasn't even the s-same person." It seemed like he had been able to regain the power of fluent speech faster than Wave had, whose eyes still shone wide with fright, "There was something so completely… _different_ about him."

Jet was getting tired of this. _We have a job to do, _he thought angrily, "Listen up, we've gotta get that shipment of aloe vera while the officials aren't looking through it. If you aren't up for the mission tonight, Wave, then we'll contact Storm and head back to The Arms now. Pull yourself together, Heartnet! We can't take you home, and if you get raped on the way back, it ain't our fault."

Caleb narrowed his eyes and looked at him with disgust, his voice dark and menacing, dripping with the most stinging venom, "Don't even _joke_ about that, it's not funny."

"I wasn't joking." Jet answered in all seriousness, "Pull your weight or we won't be able to-"

"We just ran into _Metal Sonic, _Jet!" Wave argued. "Give us a second to gather our bearings."

"Hurry up about it!" he seethed, clenching his fists, watching as the shaking slowly ceased so they looked like they weren't going to topple over like dominos. Once their words didn't run into each other like blind-folded chickens and he could clearly understand what they were saying, he took the bag from Heartnet and they started to make their way towards the docks. Despite their weird appearance, they blended in seamlessly with the shadows of the night, passing only two Egg Pawns on the way to their target. This, however, didn't sit well with their green, feathered leader, "Do you know why there aren't as many Egg Pawns surrounding the area as there should be?"

Heartnet provided an immediate response, "Word is; something weird is happening at The Iron Domain Whore House at the other side of the city. Who cares really, just-" Caleb paused a second to push them into an alleyway as another squadron of Egg Pawns passed them. Once they left the fox picked up his sentence, "-take advantage of his neglecting for now. They're going to be on us soon enough."

The Warehouse came into view as soon as the sky melted into an inky black so dark the stars rose to its surface like floating jewels. The water reflected as Heaven's mirror and surrounded them with darkness like a cloak of night. The warehouses were used for trading and shipping, both legal and illegal. There were several guards around each of the three entrances, but this wasn't like The Violet Manor, distracting these guards was going to be a lot harder than before.

The green hawk's hand slipped down to his jeans and pulled out his communicator, fiddling with it a little bit so that it latched onto his goggles nice and tightly, the quiet mutterings of static the only sound for a few careful minutes. Wave also placed her communicator on, Caleb was the only one too focused on the guards at the entrances. Jet had heard that Heartnet played bait in instances like this, but he probably hadn't seen a crowd this big before. The hawk snorted.

_This is going to be cakewalk._

They moved in closer to the docks, hiding behind containers used to transport large amounts of heavy cargo. He was annoyed, felling like he was wasting more energy than he needed to because they weren't riding their Extreme Gear, "Dammit Heartnet, why can't you ride Gear?"

Caleb gave him a sarcastic smile, "If you're willing to teach, I'm willing to learn."

_Well, we don't exactly have time for that right now, _Jet scowled, his hands clenching into fists against the flaky blue metal. He started fiddling with the communicator, damning its existence. Although they used them on every single mission, they never seemed to get easier to use. It was like trying to play a video game without seeing the controls.

"_Boss?"_

"Meet us by the blue containment unit, south of the warehouse," Jet instructed, his 'Leader' voice kicking it. It was time to get serious, because this was one of their big heists. He turned back to Wave and Caleb who were talking animatedly. He really didn't know how this team was going to run efficiently, _Isn't Wave supposed to be the person making sure we all behave?_

"You didn't see? The robot's eyes were green! _Green, _Wave!"

"I don't know," she replied cattily. "I think I might have been too busy hoping he wouldn't _mutilate _us!"

"Can you two _shut up _about Metal Sonic?" Jet snarled, having had enough of their nonsense. Honestly, he was the youngest out of The Babylon Rouges. he shouldn't have to be the one telling them to behave. Storm arrived a little bit after that, having reported that there were forty-six guards in total, almost evenly distributed between the gates.

"This would be so much easier if we had knockout gas," Wave whined.

"Yeah, well we used most of it trying to get Storm's radiator," Jet sighed as they moved around the container unit. They were now, almost at the first guard unit, a mixture of Mobians and humans dressed in black uniforms including bats and pistols.

_Haha, amateurs, _thought the hawk as the crouched behind the containment unit again. He turned around as quickly and quietly as his boots would allow, ushering his team and Heartnet in, "Okay. We've got to render all of those guards useless, preferably unconscious, before we can get into the warehouse and find the aloe vera. In combat, go for the walkie-talkies first, and try to chuck them in the water or something. Just make sure that they don't signal the other guards. Careful of the Egg Patrols too, if you see one, shoot them with this."

He tossed two guns at Caleb and Storm, he already knew Wave had one, she had designed these special guns to erase any and all memory in a robot's system, unleashing a string of deadly viruses there was no chance of recovering from. A little while after they had come to the Black Arms, Wave had gone and got herself an Egg Pawn so that she could dismantle it and find something that would turn it against his own kind. The gun he was holding now had been the result.

"Damn," Caleb said, "I haven't used a gun in ages… where the hell is the safety on this thing?" he asked.

"There is none," Wave explained. "It's only deadly against robots."

"Could you pass me the bag?" the fox asked, fingertips scratching against the cheap material of the backpack, "I think I might have a holster in there."

"Do you need a regular gun?" Storm asked all three of them, "We're going to try and keep the deaths to a minimum here, but if you need one, I've got extras."

"No thanks," the fox said. "I can handle myself."

"Here, hand me one," Wave asked, receiving a small pistol from Storm's backpack and two extra magazines. Jet thought morbidly about Wave's tone, one that he used all the time. Speaking about guns and bullets as if they were talking about trading their lunches on the playground. It was a worrying thought, but one that phased and soon became lost in things more deserving of his attention.

"Alright? Remember. Just knock them out as fast as you can." Jet declared before insistently prodding at Caleb's back, motioning for him to go forward and make a scene. The fox stumbled forward obediently, pulling his hoodie over his head and pushing his bangs in front of his face. He was obviously unwilling to wear the Spider Man mask Jet had prompted earlier in the day.

The fox's movements were surprisingly hesitant this time, approaching the guards with caution. Jet examined the body language, wondering if he was going to have to interfere before he watched as all of the guards staring at the fox suddenly fell to their knees. Jet took that as their cue, taking caution, because once the soldiers dropped to their knees they realised what was happening and lunged into attack.

He panicked when he saw Heartnet was not looking behind him, a guard with a bat ready to strike. Jet swooped in immediately, blocking of the guards attack with the barrel of his gun, long enough for Caleb to realise what was happening and land a solid kick to the guard's sternum, effectively knocking him into the dock water, "Pull yourself together!"

"Sorry!" The statement was earnest, a tone that Jet hadn't heard him use before.

"What did you do to them before?" the hawk asked over the fray, noticing that the guards were still moving at half the speed of a normal person.

"'Ve put them in a state of mental apathy."

"Well, put some more force into it! Make it so that they fall asleep," Jet ordered, not noticing the way Caleb's knees were starting to buck. He was more focused on taking people down, stealing their walkie-talkies and throwing them in the water. The edge of the docks were too high to simply climb back up, they actually needed to find a ladder, or a sloping surface to get out. He dodged to the side and jumped up to punch a man in the head, successfully making him topple to the ground.

"I can't! If I have to work with this many people, then _I'm_ going to feel the apathy as well!"

_Damn. Major drawback… can't work with too many people…_

"What's your limit? Before it starts affecting you as well?" he asked, fighting off another guard, knocking the back of his knees, snatching his walking-talkie and throwing it in the water.

"Without aloe? Lesse, six."

"That means that on aloe, it's sixty?"

"Theoretically," Caleb answered, sidestepping another guard until he lunged into the water himself. The fox's own movements were starting to become sluggish and slow.

"What do you mean 'theoretically?'"

"Timesing the number by ten is your basic general statement; it depends on your blood, and pretty much how much wisp-crack your ancestors used to do. Depending on that, your powers could increase ten, twenty, maybe fiftyfold."

"Do you know what your _limit_ is?" Jet asked, annoyed at the impromptu chemistry lesson. There were only two guards left to handle. His boots skidded across the concrete as he tripped up another guard, knocking his head as he fell into the water.

"On aloe, my limit is around one hundred and thirty. That was when I was twelve. It changes with the amount of time and control you have over your talent," he growled, rolling his neck as Storm finished off the last guard of this gate. They surveyed the mess, there were smashed walkie-talkies everywhere, and "Apparently my ancestors did a lot of HGO."

"Not surprising."

"I resent that statement."

"Whatever. We've got to move quickly. Think you can run?" Jet sighed, watching as Heartnet slowly became more sure footed, "Don't push yourself next time; we can't haul you along if you're asleep. You're already dead-weight as it is."

"You _really_ know how to make a guy feel special, don't you?"

* * *

><p><em>WS<em>

* * *

><p>As three sets of feet walked along the grey carpets of the HQ's massive corridors, which all formed together to create a small maze for any newcomer to the Freedom Fighter's base, Welshscot put a question to the panting Rotor, "Why are sweating so hard, Rotor? The lab isn't miles away and even if you did run from there, it's not enough to make anyone sweat bullets."<p>

Through ragged breaths, the Walrus replied, "Will… explain… when… there..."

In no time at all, the trio arrived in the east wing; which is where the lab, the lieutenant's quarters and Gear storage rooms are. They soon found themselves in a room with a high ceiling, which was alight with the flashing dials of machines, the occasional spark of the wiring that lined the ceiling and the eerie gleam of the scientific devices that Welsh rarely knew the names of. This room had a subtle smell of axel grease and a walking space that could fit about eight people, but besides that, the lab was quite a sight to behold.

As the lynx and the medic followed Rotor to the main work desk, they were greeted with the sight of a certain squirrel and Norwegian. The moment Welsh's grey eyes found the sun-shaped eyehole in Hjalmar's ski mask, a grin began to spread across the ginger's face. Moving past the worn out walrus, Welshscot hurried over to his old friend. Once they were in arm's distance, the medic threw them up, saying, "Hjalmar! Long time no see, you Norwegian son-of-a-bitch!"

The fur-hooded man raised his arms too, returning the greeting by saying, "Same to you, Welshscot, you cheap, ginger bastard!" They then shared a friendly hug, which quickly broke apart when Welshscot remembered that his right arm was still recovering from the allergic reaction to the English wine. His scaled arm was tender, sore and couldn't stand Hjalmar's below zero body heat at the moment.

Before the friends could truly catch up, Sally cleared her throat. "Ahem, can you two have your reunion once we're out of the lab? It's cramped enough as it is without you two hogging all the space." They both exchanged a look, both as blank as parchment, and nodded.

Back to the matter at hand, the hybrid turned his head towards the FF's leader, and asked, "So, did you guy's find out how the gun can puncture mutant armour?"

The blue vested lass nodded, "It took awhile, but we think we've worked it out." She pointed at the work desk, which had the scattered parts of Fiona's gun, and explained, "The gun is the Iron King's top custom model, top of the range barrel and six chambers that can hold six shots before reloading. It's surprisingly accurate over a medium distance and is deadly at close range. Fiona must have paid a lot of money for this piece." That last sentence was laced with deep loathing and hatred, something that was shared by the rest of the FF.

Rotor, having finally cooled down, continued on the explanation. He gestured over to a large machine that looked like a cross between a microscope and microwave. Within a small compartment that was placed near the bottom, the several shotgun shards were lying on a spinning plate, as blue light flashed around the pieces of lead. Near the top of the machine was a set of scopes a person could use to look at the specimens closely and a computer panel that showed the results of any scanned items.

Crowding round the strange machine, the others listened as Rotor said, "Now when we examined the bullets, we noticed that over a period of time they would begin to secrete—"

"Hold on there," interrupted Nicole. "Call me deaf, but I swear you just said that bullets, which are made of lead, were _secreting_." She wasn't the only person who was startled by Rotor's statement. Welshscot was also disbelieving of the idea that bullets could sweat.

Rotor nodded slowly, "Yep, you heard me right. The bullets were secreting some sort of liquid like how we give of sweat when we're running." He turned to the panel of the machine and began to pull up some result tables and diagrams, whilst saying, "When we tried to scan the liquid that had been secreted, the computer went haywire at first. Then, as I took them out to try a different test, some of the liquid got on my skin..." he trailed off, laughing nervously.

"And he started going berserk," stated Hjalmar, in an amused chuckle. "He was bouncing off the walls like a rubber ball with popping eyes. He would've trashed the lab if I hadn't been here. He even managed to kill Sally... twice."

Rotor's embarrassed blush blanched as he heard those words. Sally eyes widened in shock, before she faced the Norwegian, "You didn't tell me you used Mental Echo! And how did he managed to kill me, twice!"

Hjalmar's face was hidden by his ski mask, but you could sense that his expression was shining with mirth, "Don't you remember saying to me, 'Hjalmar, do you think that cable could come loose? And can you explain why I've got a spanner in my hand?'"

Nicole couldn't decide if that news was funny or disturbing. It seemed bizarre trying to imagine that Rotor had killed Sally, but knowing it had actually happened brought a slight sickness to her stomach.

Welshscot, who deep down was grinning at the morbid humour of the situation, cleared his throat and queried, "So, can anyone tell me why Rotor went crazy in the first place? The stuff wasn't aloe vera, was it?"

Hjalmar shook his head. "Ingen **(No)**, Welshscot. After I managed to calm him down, we examined the liquid more closely and discovered that it's Wisp DNA."

Both the hybrid and the hacker pulled a face of surprise, but it was the lynx who spoke first, "Wisp DNA? But Wisps haven't been seen since the new prison was built. I thought they were all extinct."

"Not by the looks of this," muttered Sally, her eyes watching the spinning bullets in the small scanning compartment. "The DNA hasn't just come from a single type of Wisp. The bullets appear to be infused with a combination of purple Wisp, orange Wisp and yellow Wisp DNA. They are specifically the genes that cause the 'Hyper Go On' effect, which causes a Mobian or human to enter a state of euphoria while giving the consumer a special power."

"According to old records and witness statements," continued Hjalmar, "Though it had different effects on different people, the purple Wisp dust usually made people go on a biting frenzy; being able to chew threw flesh or metal. Yellow wisp dust gave people the ability to either pass through wall or burrow underground. The orange dust, on the other hand, made people blast forwards... or they got their heads blown off; because the dust has explosive properties."

It took Nicole a while to process this information as she scratched her head, trying to piece the puzzle together. When an idea that made sense popped into her mind, she slowly muttered, "So, the purple and yellow Wisp DNA gave the bullets the ability to break through Welsh's scales, and the orange dust was used to give the gun more firing power. Luckily, when Rotor got effect by the HGO solution, he didn't blow up. He still was flustered from the whole experience, that's why he was sweating bullets."

Rotor nodded, "That's our theory. We still don't know how they managed to plant DNA into metal. There is no record saying that HGO dust has any effect on metal. How the Iron King managed to create these bullets is way beyond... Hey, what the-"

The walrus stopped before he finished his curse, as he was more focused on maintain his balance. Luckily, Sally managed to catch him before he collided into a random machine. As she helped Rotor back onto his feet, she glared at the back of the ginger medic, who had suddenly barged up to the computer panel Rotor had been typing at.

Ignoring the cries of outrage of the others, Welshscot began bringing up tabs and programs that held a long and precise list of every single gene of the bullets. Knowing what he was looking for, he typed in a search command until he found what he was looking for. This only made his sombre expression darken. He growled, "No, there's no way they could've done this. Metal Knuckles made sure that Snively's research was destroyed..."

The others, who were completely lost and had no idea what the hybrid was talking about, held their breaths as Welshscot backed away from the computer screen. He pointed at the said screen, and said disdainfully, "This… this is how the bullets can use Wisp powers."

Rotor was still annoyed that the hybrid had barged him to the side, but his curiosity got the better of him. Sliding past the medic, the walrus took one look at the screen... which made his insides squirm. Turning to the others, his cheeks a green hue, he explained shakily, "T-The bullet's a-are infused w-with mutant f-flesh... The metal is alive..."

Hjalmar jerked violently, Nicole cringed with disgust and Sally just blatantly cried, "What? How the hell is that possible?"

Welshscot, whose face turned back to its usual emotionless state, turned to Sally and explained, "It's simple; the Iron King took a live, healthy person- who just happened to be mutant- and broke down his cells into a DNA compound. He then infused it with the lead, along with the Wisp dust."

Sally's stomach turned over. While fighting a strong urge to be sick, she asked, "But how could anyone do that? And how do you know that's what he did?"

Welshscot turned away from the group, his grey eyes turning back to the computer panel. It seemed like an hour had gone by, where the others just spent their time starring at him, before he suddenly burst into speech, "Four years ago, Eggman's top scientist and nephew, Snively, discovered a way to break down a living creature's DNA structure into a compound, which could be used to 'splice' a mutant's powers into a robot. Snively had managed to find an artefact, called the Jewelled Sceptre, which helped him to break down the DNA structure. Legends say that it belonged to an air god, named Enlil."

Nicole's ears piped up in recognition, "Enlil? Isn't he a God of Babylon? The one who helped Argus seal a part of Solaris in Argus's Prison; The Twilight Cage, at the price of his wings?" When Sally and Rotor looked at her with surprise, she blushed and muttered, "I like the old stories of Babylon, they're so amazing and thrilling..."

"And are about thieves," Rotor pointed out. Nicole blushed even harder. Even though her job was stopping thieves from hacking into the Freedom Fighters' base, it seems the lynx was still taken by their lore and grandeur.

Clearing his throat, the hybrid continued his story, "Anyway, with Snively's discovery, he managed to create a prototype robot that was spliced with a shape shifting Mutant's genes. That robot was Metal Sonic, that's how he can change shape and copy other people's DNA." The three Mobians' eyes widened in recognition; Hjalmar did nothing but make a gesture that said 'continue the story'.

"Snively would've made more, if his next (and last) subject hadn't been kidnapped from the Nocturnes. Me, MK and the other lieutenants managed to track down his hidden testing labs. We weren't in time to stop Emerl from being turned into a robot, but he didn't have a chance to splice Emerl with mutant DNA. Shade freed Emerl and got him to safety while MK and I went after the midget. We never found The Sceptre, but we made sure that Snively's research was destroyed, with him along with it."

"My guess is that the Iron Domain now has the Sceptre, and have been using it to improve the quality of their guns. We still need to work out where they've got the Wisps from, but we'll ask that when we've..." Welshscot paused, as his pocket started to jingle the 'Team Chaotix' tune. After pulling out his phone and flipping it open, he raised it to his ear and said, "What do you want, CJ? I'm in the—"

"_Oh, I'm sorry, but your friend can't come to the phone right now. She's a bit tied up at the moment."_

* * *

><p><em>Theatre <em>from Jak X

* * *

><p>"Five maximum!" Jet yelled at the fox as he moved on forward to dismantle the next bunch of guards in a swift flurry of brown fur. Wave slowed her pace, still trying to manually disable the security system of this warehouse. It wasn't difficult. They mostly relied on guards so the defense system was mundane and ordinary, the kind of technology that she had been cracking when she was a child.<p>

When next they came upon the fox, he was much livelier, having already taken out three guards by himself, and was dismantling the walkie-talkies of two more. Storm and Jet bounced into the fray like mindless testosterone fuelled robots, while Wave stayed back and hacked the system, wondering if it would be easier to override all of their radio frequencies. Her hands skimmed across the holographic images projecting out of her necklace with the familiar green glow, light spilling out from the darkness of her clothes.

The boys had already taken out half of the men, when one Mobian brought out a gun that didn't look like any of the others. Before Wave could register anything, the Mobian lizard was pointing the nose of the gun in her direction. Storm was the only one to react to this, jumping in front of her before she could try to move. The shot hit home in Storm's arm faster than her genius brain could process, and before long, he was lying on the floor, writhing in pain. She slashed her hands across the screen, completing a total 'SYSTEM OVERIDE'.

She looked up, displaying her panicked face to Jet and Caleb, fear encasing the ridges of her spine in one frozen movement at a time. _I don't get it; _she thought as she tried to locate the bullet wound, _Storm is strong enough to take a bullet, three even! What's happening to him?_

Caleb lured three of the men over to the water and hit them with a blinding wave of confusion. She panicked a little more when one of the remaining men grabbed Caleb by the wrist and slammed him into the ground, an abrupt crunching noise following the impact. She really hoped that hadn't been bone, but it sounded too… _delicate_ to be marrow and cartilage… hopefully.

While they were looking around wondering what the hell they were doing, he pushed them all into the water. Jet slipped under two and ducked to the left when two more approached him, watching as all four of them bonked heads and promptly knocked themselves out, but just to be careful, he tossed their communicators in the water as well. They both hurried over to them, tripping over their own feet when Storm released a cry of agony.

"No! No!" Wave shooed them away, "The lizard with the weird gun is still around!"

_Storm is our medic! How is he supposed to tell me what to do if he's screaming in agony?_

She hoped to Enlil the bullet hadn't hit his bones. Bird's wings were hollow, so they took much longer to heal. But despite that, Storm had never reacted to a bullet wound this badly before… none of them had. This wasn't an ordinary gun. The great bird's cries made her flinch with worry, making her deeply regret not taking a course in first-aid as well. Storm was their strongest member, she didn't think something like this would ever happen.

"Fuck… I don't know where he is," Jet said, examining their surroundings. Caleb put up a finger in a gesture for silence, before they heard an abrupt scream in the distance.

_Fear. He used fear. _

"Over there!" he pointed to the obvious place of screaming and Jet threw his board down, running around the red container unit and probably knocking the lizard down, returning with the mysterious gun in hand.

_Aloe._

"Storm needs aloe vera. We've got to get him inside the warehouse!"

"Just one more group, Storm," Jet assured, eyes going steely as he looked down at the gun in his hand. Heartnet had already started running, the hawk zooming past him to take down the final bunch of guards while Wave set to work grabbing Storm's gear from his backpack and Gear-Changing it into a bike. She had to use her own board to hoist his body onto the bike, and he still hung like a ragdoll.

_I can't believe I've allowed this to happen! _ She growled and she rode Storm's bike-type gear around the perimeter of the docks, looking for the third entrance. She had already memorised the map in her mind's eye. As far as she was concerned, it was as good as found. _Why didn't I calculate this? Why wasn't I more careful? Why did Storm have to take a bullet for me anyway?_

That was a dumb question. The Babylon Rogues took bullets for each other all the time, as a constant reminder that they shouldn't have been letting their guard down. She might have just been panicked because they were in a new environment, and had accepted this mission without enough detail and experience. Jet prided himself on thinking on the spot, but this was ridiculous.

The bike stopped in a wicked-looking skid once Wave had located the gate, Heartnet and Jet had just pushed the last two men into the dock water. They watched as the large green doors slowly opened and revealed _massive_ boxes stacked in piles. Wave blanched, as did the others.

The fox was the one to break the silence, his voice a mix of outrage and disbelief, "We have like, half an hour, _tops, _to look through these boxes? This place is the size of a sodding _football field!_"

"We better get started then," said Jet, "Heartnet, put on your communicator."

She saw Caleb wince at her side, and decided to give into her curiosity, hoping he wasn't another walking disaster, "Snippy, are you alright?"

Another chill wracked her body as she saw Caleb's hand emerging from his pocket, shards of glass protruding from his skin as he dripped blood on the floor, "Ouch." He winced again, "I shouldn't have put the communicator in this pocket, eh? The fake contacts that I bought were in there."

_Oh, that must have been the cracking noise that I heard before._

"Guys! We don't have time for this!" Jet screeched, he voice was already echoing through the cavern of dark green paint, his voice bounced of the thousands of boxes inside before it reached their ears. It was then that the swallow noticed that Storm had stopped screaming, and instead, lay limp behind her. Wave gripped Storm's hand and choked out a dry sob when she realised his pulse was fading.

_What the /fuck/ was in that bullet?_

"Don't worry, Storm," she whispered as she dropped his hand and hit the boosters for the accelerate in his gear, moving through the stacks of boxes hoping aloe would jump out in her face, but knowing that was unlikely, "we're going to get you better! Yeah…"

_Storm has been protecting Jet and I since we were kids, Enlil can rip my wings out if I let my brother die._

* * *

><p><em>WS<em>

* * *

><p>The medic froze as the silky, girlish voice rang through his ear drums. His face was still blank, but his tightening grip showed his suppressed surge of anger and loathing. The phone still by his ear, the hybrid spat back, "What the hell have you done with CJ, Iron Queen?" The Freedom Fighters surrounding him all gasped with surprise. Nicole was first to change from shock to anger, as her thought turned to the woman who had tried to break her mind.<p>

The Iron Queen gave off a fake, girly laugh as she silkily replied, _"I haven't done anything to her, Welshaldy... yet. It was all so delightfully sudden. I was just sitting with my husband, discussing how we could slowly tear each of your scales out as we kill you, when all of a sudden, your dear mother and her friend, Darken, walked into our quarters, dragging your little friend behind them."_

Whatever restraint Welsh had on his emotions was soon gone. Shaking with pure rage, the hybrid snarled, "You fucking whore! If you even touch her, I'll-"

"_Oh, don't worry,"_ purred the Iron Queen, completely indifferent of the Medic's anger. _"I wouldn't dream of laying a finger upon your dirty little friend. But once I've given her a little bit of my work, she'll be wanting me to touch every inch of her, begging like a depraved slut."_ As Welsh's face boiled red, the Iron Queen added, with the same fake, girly tone, _"Oh by the way, if you try using your Electronic Disrupter to save her (or come anywhere near our brothel), my husband will blow her to bits. He has access to very powerful materials..."_

"HGO," growled Welshscot.

"_Oh, someone has been doing their homework! Very good, Welshaldy."_ Her mocking tone did nothing for Welsh's mood as his phone began to crack under his grip. _"Then with that said, you know that we can splice any Wisp or mutant power into any metal, like my nanites for example. And if her nanites were spliced with orange Wisp dust, your friend could become a walking time bomb. I will have to fight the temptation to test it once the injection progress has been complete."_ She gave off a long, cruel cackle. When her laughter died down, she smugly asked, _"So, any last words you want to say to your friend before I add her to my girls?"_

Welsh didn't say anything as he took deep, raged breaths. Finally, he lowered the phone from his ear, and shouted, "Tell CJ... That her idea of a two-way linked Disrupter device was genius!" And with that, he slammed his fist down upon his phone, right onto the button that activated the Disruptor. While nothing happened on the hybrid's end, CJ's phone let out a blast of EMP, causing the phone line and all of the machines in the Iron Domain's brothel to break.

Before the others could ask anything, Welshscot turned to the lab door and sprinted out, knocking over a random machine in his haste. Rotor, who was still exhausted from his episode with the HGO dust, had no chance of following Welsh or the others, as they jumped over the fallen machine to purse the Medic.

Hjalmar was the fastest and was the first to catch up with the medic. While continuing to run, the Norwegian ask, "What's the matter, Welshscot? What did the Iron Queen say?"

"She's got CJ," replied the hybrid, who had just turned into the corridor that led to the other exit to the FF base. "Marsali and Darken kidnapped her and turned her over to the Iron Domain."

Underneath his ski mask, Hjalmar's eyes widened in shock. "Has the Iron Queen injected her nanites into CJ?" he asked hurriedly.

"No, and she won't be able to for half an hour; thanks to the other Disrupter in CJ's phone." He stopped at the door, which was locked with a key card; which only Sally could open. He snarled and punched the door. "Damn the bloody Loa!" No sooner had he retraced his fist from the door, Sally and Nicole screeched to a halt behind them. Welsh turned on his heels and ran to Sally, demanding, "Give me the key card, now!"

The Squirrel frowned at the hybrid, "I'm not doing anything until you explain what the hell is wrong with you! Why the hell was the Iron Queen on the phone?"

Welsh was now looking down at Sally, his face taught with fury, "I said give me the damn key card!" Sally was no coward, but Welshscot's unusual anger did frighten her a bit. He had never been this angry, not since two years ago...

Hjalmar laid a hand on the medic's shoulder, "Come on, Welshald. I still don't see why we need to hurry. Even if she gets implanted, we still have time to save her."

Without turning round, his flaming grey eyes still fixed upon Sally, the hybrid shouted, "I'm not letting CJ become a slave to that bitch! And what's more, the Iron King has spliced the nanites. They're gonna use on the orange Wisp dust on her! If I don't get there within half an hour, CJ's gonna be a walking bomb!"

Nicole swore. She knew what it was like when under the control of the Iron Queen's nanites. She hated the fact that other people were still being forced to serve the Whore Mistress and upon hearing that CJ might die if they didn't act now, she turned to Sally and cried, "Sally, if that's true, we need to act now!"

Sally bit her lip, "I'm sorry, but we can't. It's too dangerous to just charge in without a plan."

Nicole couldn't believe her ears. Stamping her feet in frustration, the lynx yelled, "What the hell do you think we've been doing for the past few day! Did you hesitate last time as well, when the Iron Domain tried to turn me into one of their whores?"

Welshscot turned away from the squirrel and passed Hjalmar. He slowly walked straight for the door, muttering, "Gather the rest of the FF. I'll go on ahead."

Sally, who looked hurt and confused, "No, wait. I'm not letting you rush on ahead. I'm not letting you die like Tommy."

Welsh didn't turn around. Stopping in front of the door, he muttered, "Tommy was killed because of Geoffrey's betrayal. And I wasn't asking your permission." He then swiped Sally's key card, which he had stolen from her belt, through the scanner, causing the door to swing open.

Before Sally could stop him, Welshscot pelted through the door and up into the black passageway. With each bound he made, the hybrid managed to somehow collide with the low ceiling of the passageway, but in his anger, his fury, he didn't even notice the bruises that were forming atop his scalp.

Soon, he managed to reach the end of the passageway and barged the door on the end open. He barely registered any small detail of the abandoned apartment, which was lined with customers who wanted their Gears fixed. Without even saying 'Sorry', he leapt over the counter, ignoring the cries of protest from the FF mechanics. On the way out of the clustered garage, as he shoved aside customers in his haste, he managed to snatch a Mobian's hip flask (which smelt of Whiskey) and a human's green Gear.

With the board and alcohol in hand, he burst out onto the veranda of the building, the wind wiping his skin with brute force. Without pausing, or serious thought, Welsh leapt onto the green gear and rode off over the edge of the multi-storied building.

This move would have been suicidal if Welsh wasn't a fly-type, or if his gear wasn't set for a fly-type. Fortunately for the hybrid, the gear he had stolen _was _a fly type, so he managed to land onto the street without much ground impact. Not so fortunately, the gear he had stolen had been needing repairs, so he was annoyed that the gear was only going half its usual speed. He wasn't very good on a board, he preferred Gear Skates or Gear Bikes, and so it did nothing for his mood that he was bumping into walls or bins as he headed for the Casino Nights district, the home of the Iron Domain.

_For crying out loud, _thought Welshscot as he once again sent a dustbin flying into the air. _Can't this piece of crap just stay straight for one minute? I can't let the Iron Queen implant CJ. I'm not loosing anyone else because of my fucking mother!_

As he finally caught sight of the edge of the Casino Nights district, Welshscot was about to actually pause for a second to plan out his attack when gunfire suddenly blazed out of nowhere. The board Welsh was on was completely destroyed by the sudden attack, causing the hybrid to sprawl onto the pavement. He landed on his scaled arm, which had not recovered from his allergic reaction to the English wine.

Clutching his throbbing arm, Welshscot rose to his feet, glaring at the cause of his abrupt landing. Its red eyes gleaming with an evil, emotionless stare, Metal Sonic raised his machine gun arm till it was aligned with the medic's head.

If it had been any other day, Metal Sonic would have lasted longer than he did. But Welsh was _really_ pissed off and was in a hurry. So before Metal could do or say anything, the hybrid pulled out his phone, yelling, "I DON'T HAVE _TIME_ FOR THIS SHIT!" And with that, he activated his Disruptor.

Metal Sonic let out a gargled sound, which reminded Welsh of a bad autotuned song, as sparks began to dance and fly round his mainframe. His eyes began to flicker on and off, his machine wired brain totally fried by the burst of electronic energy. He was completely open to Welshscot's front kick, which managed to send the cyborg sprawling onto the ground with a loud clunk.

The hybrid didn't bother to check his fallen foe, as he continued to hurry towards the Iron Domain, hell bent on saving his friend from certain death or enslavement.

If had stayed for a little longer, he would have seen when the sparks around Metal Sonic finally died away...

That instead of its usual red rings...

Metal Sonic's eyes were now flashing brilliant neon green...

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>Review please!

**ღ**


	23. Heartnet Interview FILLER

**DEO|note: **Firstly, if you don't give two shits about Caleb, then don't bother reading this chapter. Okay? Okay. Listen here; THIS IS NOT A REAL CHAPTER. It's kind of like a filler between chapters, except doesn't have much to do with the plot.

Heyya! This is Deo Blair, the 'apparent' inspiration for Caleb Heartnet. Domi thought it would be interesting to have something that breaks the fourth wall (she's desperate for _something _to update) to keep you entertained until she's got the next chapter sorted. This is kind of against 's rules of conduct, but I don't have an account, so I'm all set-

*stapler is thrown at head*

Ah, of course, by that I mean that she hopes they'll over-look it. There are more important people breaching the terms of service agreement somewhere.

**WARNING! **Caleb's mouth and gutter-brain need to be cleaned out with soap, as most of you know. Don't read it if you're easily offended.

**Rules**

**1.** Pick some of your FCs/OCs.

**2.** Fill in the answers from their point of view.

**3.** Tag 3 people at the end of the quiz. (And by 3, I mean _anyone_ that can do this without getting into trouble, in which case; kudos to you.)

Thanks to **Exploder**, **StevDown**, **Undead009**, **SmallSpek**, **LordCooler**, **HalfWright**, **superechidna**, **WelshScot**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **little-miss-monochrome**, **Kobiee**, **Metalshadow1909** and **Taichi L. Yagami** for reviewing the last chapters.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><strong>Caleb Heartnet (AoODD, AU) Character Interview.<strong>

1. _What's your name?_

The fuck? Why does every single one of these character profiles start of with this question? Is it _so _much to ask for a little variety? When was the last time you saw an interview that started out with 'If you had the choice between eating cockroaches and watching a human on Mobian porno, which one would you chose?' (*cough*Elise!*cough*) Why can't we reveal my name at the very end to make it interesting?… No? ...Fine then…

I don't get paid enough for this.

2. _Do you know why you were named that?_

Domi's got some shit cooked up (something to do with irony), says it would be easier to find out what my purpose in the story is if people knew what it meant.

Caleb = 'Loyalty.' Pfft. Haha.

And Heartnet is a variation of one of her favourite authors, Sonya 'Hartnett'. Pretty pansy-ass if you ask me. Why couldn't she name me 'Max Power' or something cool right? It's because she's _always_ cruel to her favourites! How many times has that Prower kid gotten beat up, right?

3. _Are you single or taken?_

This question is the epitome of idiocy and I refuse to answer it!

*bricked*

Fuck, _fine! _…Single. But it isn't like I _want_ to be in a relationship, they're over-rated after all. I don't need a girl to go all high-maintenance 'soul mate' on me. No way. I'm happy as is.

*goes to cry in a corner*

4. _Have any abilities or powers?_

Every single time I hear someone tell a lie, I get a tingling sensation in my anus-

*shot*

*sighs* Fine, 'the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.' Which is like, a stuck up version of explained blunted empathy.

**Tails:** Don't read it out of the dictionary! That's cheating!

How come _Prower_ gets to butt into this? The entire bloody _story_ is dedicated to him anyway! He doesn't need anymore face time!

5. _Stop being a Mary-Sue._

Aha! Screw you interviewer, because _my_ score on 'The Mary-Sue Litmus Test' is 18! Sodding _perfect_ man! Shove that in your over-powered, one-winged, quadruple-named, over-rated fan character's face!

6. _If you were to get in a fight with a strong wrestler, do you think you'd win?_

Not if it were El Grande Gordo man. *shudders* Apparently it's really Eggman in disguise, but seriously? What kind of wierdo makes up this spouted nonsense?

7. _Have any family members?_

My little sister, Lottie, is a reincarnate of the devil. The rest of 'em are long gone.

8. _How about pets?_

The rabbit's _not_ mine. It likes to chew through my clothes! Do I _look_ like the kind of person that rolls around in carrots? _Silver maybe, _but not me. If it were up to me, Lottie's rabbit would've been served up as stew by now.

9. _Tell me something that you don't like?_

I don't have time to write bloody book, man. If I had to name five at the top of my head right now? It'd be campers, molluscs, the grit at the bottom of the coffee mug, my Pa and- as of right now- _interviewers._

10. _Something that you don't do well?_

These are stupid questions-

*shot again* Check up on Chapter Six, I ride extreme gear like a boss. *winks*

11. _Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do?_

… I used to like painting… artsy stuff was fun… *looks up from flashback* What are you looking at? Don't you _dare_ spread it 'round or I. Will. C_ut. You._

12. _Have you ever hurt anyone in anyway before?_

We're going to be here all night. My last three random acts of violence include; 1. Pushing Silver down the stairs, 2. Knocking Silver into a wall, 3. Throwing an unopened soda can at Silver's head.

13. _Ever... killed anyone before?_

My lawyer said I'm not allowed to disclose that piece of information. I kid! No way man. *whispers* I hear it's _illegal_ and stuff. Derp.

14. _What kind of animal are you?_

A fox, and have been since 2002! Oh yeah. Of course, I wasn't as cool then. I was afflicted with the Gary-Stu syndrome.

15. _Name your worst habits._

Pfft. Yeah right, I'm perfect in every way, shape and form.

16. _Do you look up to anyone at all?_

Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp is beast. Nah, if I'm going to look up to anyone, it's gonna be Rouge; she is our SU Catwoman equivalent. Totally BAMF.

17. _Sexuality?_

I've fucking run into another wall with this question. Domi says I'm not allowed to say.

18. _Do you go to school?_

_No,_ actually. I'm really a synthetic robot-toy-thing that's gotten all the information implanted into a USB slot on my right nipple-

*bricked… _again_*

Yes! I go to Prison-I meant an 'educational facility' of learning and… learning-ness. Christ…

19. _Ever wanna marry and have kids one day?_

More spoilers. Aya… _No. _I don't have the sudden maternal urges to take care of whiny brats and lactate… What? I don't have to do that because I've got a dick?... Awesome!

20. _Do you have any fangirls/fanboys?_

If I do, they're not saying anything. And I'm glad. I don't need anyone stealing my hat or throwing water bottles at me.

_And we're done._

Thank Solaris! This hasn't helped me in any form, in fact, this has probably made me _less_ popular. I'mma go and read the script for the next chapter now… apparently my blood being trecked all over the set is a bad thing… What? Stop revealing spoilers? Well why don't I just go and say that Prower royally fucks up and ends up dead? While I'm at it; Blaze and Sonic go at it like rabbits, and I don't mean that suck-up Cream because she dies too! Eggman goes on a diet and ends up hot enough to turn _Shadow_ gay, while Wave and Storm become complete Modern Warfare 3 addicts and totally abandon their duties in Soleanna to gain level four prestige-

*shot… for real this time*

* * *

><p><strong>DEO|note: <strong>The Crew behind _Anthem of Our Dying Day_ wish everyone a Happy New Year.


	24. Iron Domain Part I

**domi|note**

Uploaded **16th of March, 2012.** With the help of the wonderfully talented **Pixelated Firely** for beta-ing and of course, **WelshScot**, for writing out the entire chapter. All 11, 104 words of it.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, down throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-expression. ~Dylan Thomas<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twenty Four  
>.<em>  
>"You're going down. You're goin' down, down. You walked all over me, you never thought I'd be-the one who's laughing now, now that you're going down."<br>…_  
>Goin' Down<em> by Three Days Grace

I r o n . W h o r e . V s . W e l s h . I r r i t a t i o n

* * *

><p>"For the love of Solaris, if that guy flirts with me one more time..."<p>

"Quit being a pussy, Thorndyke. You should be grateful that someone wants to pop your cherry, even if it's just for money."

The young GUN agent just stared down at his jug of water, angry fumes shooting out of his ears. He, and Leilani Cesario, had been doing the exact same thing they had been doing since they arrived at the Iron Domain Whorehouse: sitting at a secluded table, drinking so not to stand out and desperately trying to find a way to get what they'd came for. From the moment they had taken their seats, Cesario ordered Chris to get drinks while she tried to sweet talk the guards into giving her some info. Thorndyke returned with water for himself (the bartender didn't believe he was over twenty-one because of his height) and a Bloody Mary for his fuming superior, as she had just discovered that every single guard had lips tighter than a misers' purse. Chris then reminded her that it said, in the mission briefing, that all the guards were eunuchs (men who had gotten their 'family jewels' cut off) since their bosses didn't want them to get any ideas. This earned him a jug to the head and a list of punishments he will face after the mission was complete. Since then, the GUN agents had kept to their table, silently clocking the guards and cameras and occasionally telling the odd whore to sod off. Cesario, who had long since finished her drink, trailed her crimson eyes around the Iron Domain's main bar/dance parlour.

Despite how one of its owners, the Iron Queen (real name Regina Ferrum-Kun), was a Tech wizard, the main building was a mixture of French and Old Barbarian architecture; seeping with strong timber, hanging non-Mobian furs, regal paintings and mixed heat from open fireplaces and hidden pipes and radiators. In this particular room, where all the vices of this place could be found, the room looked like it was from 1439 that had this century mixed in. If it weren't for the fact that people came to this place to eye more revealing things, people would be commenting on how this place was just a overpowering eyesore. But instead, they muttered, 'I wonder if my wife's home' or 'Damn it, wrong gender'.

Shaped like an oval, the ground floor (for there were two wooden verandas that lined each floor above the ground floor which could be reached via spiral staircases) was separated into different sections. On the side that had the least nudity, you would find the bar; where the barman, a thuggish man with a smelly, larger scented apron, was pulling out a bottle from a wine rack that was overflowing with expensive drinks that many had never even heard of before. His small, bulging eyes were sweeping around the mix of polished and roughly cut tables that were scattered around the bar; while wiping a glass with a cloth that had a small, red stain on the bottom...and it didn't smell of red wine.

But while this side was thick with faces, rich and penniless, their loud gossip and cheers were only to hide the sounds that were coming from the more 'exciting' places. And she didn't mean the small, empty dance floor where horrid dance songs were played from hidden speakers that no one listened to. In fact, the only people who were shaking their hips were the doe-faced girls who were sliding up and down their red poles, while their lustful audience, who ranged from wrinkled faced bureaucrats to dirty skinned tar workers, watched eagerly; their pockets bulging with money along with other things.

In Cesario's opinion, the people who were paying these prostitutes and having their way with them in the bedrooms above were desperate. She didn't deny that some were fair and pretty, but their expressions were robotic, their movement seemed rehearsed and all in all they just seemed lifeless; all because of the tiny machines that crawled inside them and controlled their minds. Even a normal wench showed some disgust when looking at their aged client or when they faked a scream of pleasure; these women, and men, didn't even move a muscle in their face when someone accidentally spilled their drink on their pretty new clothes. It just seemed... unnatural, freakishly unnatural.

Combined with the horrible meld of decoration, the entire building was just an insight of the twisted nature of the owners. The Iron Queen's love for French culture and her desire to put everything she owned under her control shone from the paintings on the walls and was viable in the dull eyes of her 'girls'.

Her husband, the Iron King (aka Jun Kun), clearly was more in favour of old warrior cultures from all the medieval fashioned chairs and rug skin furs. Though he too liked to make sure he was in full control of his 'subjects', he used more physical means; namely the guards that clung discreetly to the walls, who were armed as if they were waiting for the order to go to war. It was these clashes of these and other traits that made the room look so disjointed and ugly, just like the so called 'love' that the Iron couple supposedly shared.

Chris looked up from his drink, his face showing un-disguisable boredom. "This is a waste of time," he groaned. "Why are we even here? What's the point of a recognisance mission when all there is too see are pole dancers that look like drones? "

Leilani had considered responding with a tease, but she was just as bored as he was, so she just muttered, tonelessly, "GUN apparently got a tip-off that the source of all the DNA-laced weapons were coming from here. Command wants us to see if we can find proof of this before we launch a full raid."

The brown haired boy rolled his eyes and asked, "And you didn't tell me this why?"

A glass that had once been full of Bloody Mary was brought down upon his head. "Do not question my organizational skills," she hissed.

Chris rubbed the sore spot on his scalp, his face screwed up in pain and irritation. Looking back up to his superior, the young GUN agent muttered, in a careful way so he didn't receive another blow to the head, "Are you sure your medication is working?" He then quickly added, when he saw Leilani's fingers tighten around her glass, "I mean it would be nice to know that we're supposed to be looking out for gun dealers than just taking in the view."

Leilani didn't take her hand away from her glass, but her hand lost some of its tension. "Fine, you've got a point..." She trailed off, her boredom now reaching the point where she would scream, "Fuck this," and storm out, even if it was a mission. _Hell, _she thought_, this isn't even a mission; it's a bloody joke. If GUN really wanted to find incrementing evidence they would tell us to break in and steal it._

They kept silent after that, Chris rubbing his bruise for something to do, not to ease any pain but the pain of boredom, while Leilani just continued to examine her surroundings, her eyes dull and absent of any real purpose. The only break her eyes, and her sanity, received was when a ginger-haired man, from a table close to Leilani's, stood up. It was clear as hell that he was drunk, his face was as shiny as glossy red paint and his movements were so erratic that the other patrons on nearby tables had to duck as he swung a brown shoulder bag around his head, singing a song that was obscured by his slowed, slurred words. Leilani smirked as she watched the drunkard hit a wrinkly faced man, who wore a fancy stripped suit and an expression of snobbish smugness, in the back of the head, sending said man to over a table and landing on the floor. Before he could even say one pompous swear word or a threat to sue, the ginger drunk staggered past him, knocking glasses and cups off the tables he past, sending the liquid they contained into the air, their landing causing a certain wrinkled face to splutter under the tidal wave of drink. As if karma had some hand in this scene, the ginger drunk managed to waddle towards the front door, which a stranger opened for him as a reward for his act of Dutch courage, and disappear before the old man, with his alcohol stained lips, managed to call the guards from their shadows.

The red eyed gun agent smiled, wryly. Even though this would probably be the most interesting thing she would see for the remainder of the mission, Leilani was grateful that she has one memory to look back that would bring a grin to her face.

Deciding to end this farce of an assignment on a humorous note, Leilani turned to her underling, who was still rubbing the sore spot she had given him, and muttered, resignedly, "Come on, Thorndyke, let's get back. We didn't come here to view the erotica and it's clear nothing gonna show up." The brown haired agent quickly rose to his feet, his relief numbing his throbbing scalp as quick as a bullet. Seeing an opportunity for mischief, Leilani pulled off an evil grin as she added, "We've more productive activates to continue; like your punish—"

She didn't know how she knew, that at that moment, something big, something catastrophic was about to happen. When, after all was said and done, she tried to recall the feeling she had felt, that had told her something was about to occur, the only word she could come up with was...wave.

For after she had paused, after feeling that wave of warning, everything around her began to change. Chris, who was about to ask what was wrong, jumped when, from the wall nearest him, a hidden CCTV camera, which had been set into the said wall fell onto the table in front of him; sparks dancing wildly around its exposed wires. This was a similar incident amongst the other customers as cameras, which had been destroyed by some unknown force, shot from any place imaginable. One had even shot through the canvas of a painting that hung above the main entrance of the Iron Domain. While Leilani was taken off guard by the sudden appearance of broken cameras, it didn't take her long to realise that these were occurrences of an electromagnetic charge, which only ever happened when a bloody Nuke went off.

But it wasn't the dance floor's music system, which had made a awful screech before sharing the explosively fate of the cameras: the stray electric lighting, which didn't really matter because the room was dominated by the natural light of firelight, and the odd phone in a patrons' pocket, which thankfully didn't explode, that were the cause of everyone's horror or disgust.

In fact none of the customers screamed or yelled; or if they did, it was drowned by the sounds that were coming from every corner of the Iron Domain, which was emanating from every mouth of every whore and harlot. Leilani, while covering her ears, saw one of the pole dancers, on the other side of the room, fall from her perch like her stings had been cut; her mouth, though, was still wide open. On the floors above, behind the doors where people re-paid money with their bodies, the screams were resonating through the wood and plaster, making a void of horrific sound surround the Iron Domain like a bubble.

Chris and Leilani didn't have any time to recover from the abrupt assault on their ears, before the guards melted into plain view, ushering people away from the prostitutes on the ground floor and to the bar. Along with the many customers on the ground floor, who were either leaving their tables or shuffling in by the prompt of the guards, the upper levels were being emptied as guards herded half-dressed men and women down the stairs, who all had the same look of shock as the other customers.

Despite the panic that the screaming has caused, the guards had managed, so far, to keep order without the need for firearms. But Chris, as one of the guards pushed a table out of the way to create more room for the terrified customers, saw a black Beretta 92S holstered on the guard's belt, along with a butterfly knife and a taser. If one of the customers did something stupid, then this could become extremely ugly.

And that's what the pompous old man did. Still dripping with alcohol and fuming with anger, it was no wonder why he protested being herded into the bar area like sheep; the border collies being the guards who were all gathered in a tightly knitted line. Pushing past his terrified and half dressed neighbours, the old man strutted towards one of the guards and brandished a bony finger, whilst screeching, "Let me out, you dim witted grunts! I've had enough of this; camera's exploding everywhere and the constant screaming, this nonsense has gone on long enough!"

The guard gave the old fool a look of complete dislike and loathing. If not for the fact that he was ordered to keep everyone calm with no casualties, he would have gladly taken out his taser and stuffed it down the old man's throat. "Listen, crone. Unless you didn't notice, but an EMP just went off." Leilani, who had been pushed near the back with Chris, had to admire how the guard could sound so professional and yet still take the piss out of the old fool, whose face was starting to go as red as his wine stains. "We don't know what's happening, so for your own safety..."

But the old man, whose eyes darted to the main door, just growled again. "Our own safety? Pah, you just mean the safety of your reputation! You just want us all huddled up so your bosses, when they get here, can pay us to keep silent! Well I'm not paying you a single ring- I am going to bring this to the royal court..."

The old man didn't need to shout any more, since the screaming had at that moment stopped, but he was defiantly determined to cause a fuss. The other patrons, who were already near their wits end, were now checking their purses for coin they may, or may not, have. The two GUN agents exchanged a nervous glance. If the Iron couple, especially the Iron Queen, saw their faces and did a background check to see if they could use some blackmail to keep them silent, then they'll discover that they're GUN agents, and that's the last thing they need. Even Leilani's powers to erase memories wouldn't be fast enough to stop the Iron King's fist crushing their skulls.

The old man was about to make one last demand, which will end with his face kissing the floor and causing the customers to stampede, when his eyes began to pop out of their sockets. He pointed to the front door and cried, "Hey, what about him? If I have to be stuck here like an animal then so does that drunkard!"

The guard, thinking that it was a bluff, readied his fist before turning round to face the door. But it seems the old man was right; the ginger drunkard, saddle bag and all, had stumbled back into the Iron Domain, completely unaware of the events that had transpired. The guards were saved the trouble of breaking from his line, since the drunkard, while swaying from side to side, had blindly taken the route towards the bar. His footing uneven, he literally fell onto a guard, who was positioned at the left end of the line, and then stumbled to his right and tumbled past every guard in the line, like a broken bicycle. The guard on the right end of the line, who was not amused by the drunkards' folly, grabbed the drunken man's shoulder and pushed him back to the middle of the line, since there was no room anywhere else.

Though the old man was eyeing the drunkard with severe loathing, the rest of the customers were grateful for some comic relief. Chris shook his head, a small smile now growing on his chin. Leilani, however, frowned. There was something wrong here

The head guard, who was in no mood to joke, roughly grabbed the front of the ginger's shirt and pulled him face to face. "Listen, asshole, I don't have time for some drunken—" The change from annoyance, to recognition and then surprise was faster than a heartbeat. His hands released the man and they both went to his belt, while he yelled, "FUCK, IT'S WELSHALD-"But once again he stopped, but this was only due to surprise. His hand was on his holster, where his gun should be...but isn't now.

The last thing the guard felt was the cold metal of his own Beretta 925, its tip now against his throat. The last thing he saw was a blank, emotionless face, though the eyes were burning with cold fury. And the last thing he head, after hearing the safety catch click, was a low, dark mutter. "It's Welshscot, pigo..."

A new liquid joined the liquor stains on the old man's clothes, yet it was just as crimson. As the guard slowly collapsed, his fellows reached for their guns, determined to avenge their comrade. But most of them received a bullet in their temples before they could even move their arms. And as the magazine of Welshscot's gun emptied, the guards were horror struck by the absence of their pistols and rifles. The answer to the reaming guards' mystery was explained, but their satisfaction was short-lived. For when the ginger's Beretta 925 had run out of bullets, he simply dropped it and pulled out, from the shoulder bag that had belonged to the other ginger, another Beretta, though silver this time.

It was over in less than a minute, and it took the bodies to crumple even faster than that. The crowd of people were stunned, their brains to muddled up from the chain of shocks they have been exposed to. Chris, who had seen his odd share of death and had seen many cold and calculating people in his days, had to admit, as he stared at the ginger haired man, that he had never come across a man who killed with a handful of men without showing a trace of emotion, be it regret, sorrow, anger or even joy. If there had been a flash of emotion, it had been submerged with a blank veil or covered with a stone wall.

But before the screams began, this time from the patrons, the old man, whose face had turned even redder, snarled at Welshscot, "Scottmen!"

The hybrid turned his eyes upon the old man, which were blank and uncaring, and replied, coolly, "Hello to you to, Mr Oxford." He then strode past the old man and headed towards the bar, much to the old man's dismay and anger. The patrons cleared a path for the ginger, who was still carrying the used pistol. When he reached the bar, Welshscot looked at the thuggish barman, pointed to the many wall sized wine racks and, in a calm tone, "Iawn, i angen potel o wisgi Scotch a sieri Sbaeneg. Rwyf hefyd angen gwin Cymreig a fodca, ond gallech eu cymysgu yn yr un botel? Allwch chi wneud hyn i mi, ffrind?" **(Okay, I need a bottle of Scotch whiskey and Spanish sherry. I also need Welsh wine and vodka, but you could mix in the same bottle? Could you do this for me, friend?)** The lumbering bar man looked at the ginger as blankly as the other patrons, before he cracked a smile and said, in a sing-song accent, "Wrth gwrs **(Of course)**, anything for a fellow Welshman." He turned around and began to skim through his racks of wine, whilst saying, in his happy toned voice, "I presume this means the Iron couple are as good as dead?"

"Yep," replied Welshscot as he began to inspect his weapon-filled bag.

The barman laughed. "Da, rwyf wedi casáu'r bob amser bastardiaid!** (Well, I've always hated the bastards!)**"

The old man, named Oxford, continued to glare at the hybrid with a look of pure loathing and disgust. Though the crowd was starting to moan and sob as the shock finally kicking in, Oxford was still intent on making his voice heard. Pointing at the hybrid, he screeched, "Everyone, this half-mutant murderer is the leader of the Cult of Argus; the devil worshippers of Argus the Destroyer! We must subdue him quickly, before he kills us all!"

Chris and Leilani, who had been doing there best to keep out of the picture, could feel the buzz of noise that came from all of the other patrons. But to their surprise, there gazes were fixed upon Oxford and not the so called 'devil worshipper'. True, most of the humans were giving him scared glances, but the rest of them, along with the mobians, were muttering darkly about the wine stained man.

Then a brown haired human, who seemed to have left his shit upstairs, walked up to Oxford and darkly said, "You got it wrong, mate. It's Argus the Imprisoner, not destroyer. And this guy 'ere is Welshscot, who's the head priest, but more importantly, a fine doc and a safe guy." This was greeted with many nods and cat calls of agreement.

Oxford, who didn't seem like a man to back down, sneered at the topless man and jeered, "That thing," he gestured at Welshscot, "is a monster, like his mother! And devil worshippers like you are just the same-"

"Shut up, Achaz."

All eyes turned to Welshscot who, despite his blank face, was emitting a powerful wave of anger; which was aimed directly at the old man. He didn't move away from the bar counter, but his voice was as clear as if he was talking into your ear; which made even Leilani shiver. "I don't have time for stupid, bigoted pricks like you, so I'll make this short. You are a money grabbing piece of shit who sells his granddaughters for a buck; do you really have the right to call anyone a monster? So get out now before someone here decides to send you to Iblis."

Achaz Oxford had been humiliated beyond measure. When the old man had scurried out of the front door, Welshscot turned his grey eyes to the topless man. "Thank you," he said, in a sincere tone. He looked around at the crowd of mobians and humans, who were still trying not to look at him, with a blank face but grateful eyes. He looked like he was going to say something, before the emptiness reclaimed his eyes. He then turned, not to the barman (who was still collecting bottles), but to Chris and Leilani. Still standing where he was, he called to them, "Hey, can you two escort these people out and give each of the whores..." he pulled out a large, white phial and threw it at Chris, who caught it while keeping the stunned look on his face, "...a sip of this. Then get them to safety...after you've found them some clothes."

Leilani, who generally didn't like taking orders or medicine bottles, glared suspiciously and angrily at the hybrid and asked, "Why the hell are you giving us this, and why do you want us to escort people? We're..."

"GUN agents," he finished. "How I knew this, is because: One, you didn't show any usual signs of shock when I killed the guards, meaning you're either hardened killers or trained professionals. Two, one of you ordered water while the other only had one drink, meaning you didn't come here to relax, also meaning your working undercover and the only group that does that is GUN. Three, you're not wearing working class or expensive clothes; and people with free time don't come here at lunch time, they have eat at the Omega Milkshake bar. Finally, the biggest give away, you don't smell of hoe."

After saying this at a ridiculously fast pace, Welshscot turned back to the bar where three bottles were awaiting him: a Scotch Whiskey, a Sherry that looks like it comes from Spain and bottle that seems to contain a mixture of wine and vodka. He thanked the barman and placed all of the bottles into his shoulder bag. But before he sprinted off towards a set of stairs, the hybrid turned to Leilani and added, "And that white stuff contains an enzyme that will help the whores' bodies to reject the nanites."

For a long time afterwards, the two GUN agents didn't say a word to each other, as they were busy escorting the patrons out and reviving the whores and harlots. The latter proved the most awkward. Some of them had no recollection of where they were or why they were wearing such slutty outfits, but most didn't even know who they were. It was hard working trying to calm them down, especially when gunshots started to go off on the floors above. But the GUN agents managed to get them all outside, where ambulances, the police and a battalion of Egg Prawns.

As they walked back to their apartment, their minds buzzing over the fiasco of a mission, Leilani suddenly spoke, in a dry tone, "Isn't that 'Welshscot' a psychiatrist?" When Chris gave a distant nod, she then spat, "No wonder I hate him already."

"Is that because of his profession, or because he saw through your big idea of a disguise?"

It goes without saying, that Chris spent that night hanging by his toes over a small mine field of pins, tacks and nails.

* * *

><p><em>Ooooooh! I feel like something's broken. Your blind, blinded by the light! <em>~Britannia High

_Memories are the best souvenirs _~Source Unknown

* * *

><p>For the third time since he had left the two gun agents, climbed the stairs to the third floor and had gone through a side door that didn't lead to a room with a set of chains in, Welshscot had throw himself back the way he came as he ran around a corridor's corner. Also like last time, he narrowly missed a HGO bullet that managed to tunnel its way through the wood and plaster of the corridor's corner wall. Though, unlike last time, the ginger, when he poked out from around the corner, threw one of the butterfly knifes he had stolen from the guards below, at his assailant. It spun through the air, landing hard into the forearm of the hybrid's assailant, who dropped his assault rifle for obvious reasons. Though he tried to pull the knife from his wound, it only left his flesh when Welshscot ran up to him, grabbed the handle and pulled it in such a way that it cut across towards his gullet.<p>

Leaving the knife in the guard's throat, Welshscot continued on his way, through the passages that he had studied during the planning with the FF. Though he had abandoned the original plan, for CJ's mind and body was threatened with little time to waste, the first objective was the same: get to the Iron Queen's room. For despite all the information that Nicole managed to gather, the entrance to the Iron Queen's secret laboratories was still a secret, a secret that could be unravelled by searching the Tech mistress' belongings.

Breathing heavily, while keeping a hand on the strap of his shoulder bag, the hybrid pounded around the last corner, where he was greeted by the sight of a huge, double oak door which were guard by three men, armed with shotguns. Without pausing to think, Welshscot, while continuing to sprint, reached into his bag and pulled out the first thing his fingers could find. The thing his finger's found was one of the bottles he had received from the Welsh barman: a concoction of Welsh wine and Russian Vodka.

When the guards finally took notice of the ginger haired man, the latter was almost upon them, tearing the bottle's stopper with his teeth. Welshscot only stopped when he was within an arm's reach of the guards', who were all releasing their safety catches and pointing their barrels straight at the hybrid's head. Praying to Argus and Emil that this would work, the medic quickly downed the drink, the horrible mixture of liquor plummeting down his throat like sharp stones. At the same moment, when the guards pulled their triggers to unleash death upon the ginger, that the liquid shot straight back up and out from Welshscot' mouth, in the form of a cloud of dry ice. The white, cloudy mist eased its way past the bullets, which caused them to develop a cold shell that made them fall to the floor and shatter. The same thing happened to the guards, their last expressions being shock as they saw the tips of their weapons turn to ice before that ice spread to the rest of their bodies, capturing their skin, blood and finally their hearts.

The mist of dry ice, its course now closing to an end, left its final mark upon the double oak doors, encasing itself into the seams and turning them from strong to brittle. Brittle enough for a certain medic to crash through shoulder first, into the bedroom of the Iron Queen. As he shook the fragments of glass from himself, Welshscot allowed his grey eyes to look other the Tech mistress's quarters.

There was only one bed, since the couple slept separately (a sign of a failing marriage), and it was a high poster bed, with red curtains that could hide any sleeper from view. Ignoring the paintings and red decor, there were only four sights of interest. One was the huge desk that was packed high with CCTV screens, which were all fuzzy due to the electronic disrupter blast from twenty minutes ago. The other two were a row of wardrobes the size of lampposts and a expensive looking dressing table, which was covered with thousands of little bottles, sprays and other such makeup.

Welshscot did not care for the last article at first, his mind still blazing and swimming with urgency and worry. _For crying out loud!_he thought, running his bandaged hand through his sweat-laced hair. _It's gonna take too long to find a single clue to where the entrance to the lab is hidden! I've only ten minutes to find it or the power's gonna come back on and CJ will be..._

He stopped, his eyes finally catching sight of the most important thing in the room. It was a little trophy cabinet, though not of the silver or brass cup kind. Each shelf had a collection of items, each one usually accompanied with a picture. The items varied to ring's embedded with crests of famous families that had disappeared around the Iron Domain, stuffed or wax body parts that may have belonged to rivals and...

Welshscot, whose eyes began to cloud like he had forgotten everything around him, slowly walked towards the trophy cabinet. He pulled open the glass door, his fingers moving totally on their own as his grey eyes stared at the bottom shelf. There was no picture with this trophy item, only a note, which read: 'Will be re-joined soon', but Welshscot didn't care about that, as he slowly placed his bandaged index onto the trophy item and slid it off the shelf and into his left hand.

The medic's mind was now so clouded that all movement ceased, even his heart slowed down, as he gazed at the small item in his hand. It was a silver fifty pence coin and was English by origin since it bore a unique picture on the tails side of the coin. There was a little dent mark on of the corners and as Welshscot's eye made a small flicker in that corner's direction, a voice drifted from the past; to a time that seemed too alien to the medic that it may have belonged to someone else.

_"Why do you put that between your teeth? Are you trying to choke on it?"_

_"It's my lucky habit, Welshald. I think better when I hold it with my teeth and waggle it."_

And as those words reverberated inside his head, the medic's stone face crumbled away, giving way to a true smile that was brimming with happiness and remembrance, his eyes drifting out of focus with a sense of longing. He didn't know how the Iron Queen had gotten her spindly little fingers on this coin, and at the moment he didn't care.

But a sense of reality started to weave its way back. CJ was still captured, endangered of losing her mind to the control of a few electronic bugs and he was no step closer to finding her. But Welshscot, who had lost the moment he had experienced, didn't return his mask. Instead, a smirk widened across his face and his eyes glinted at the coin in his hand.

Turning to face the room at large, he raised the fifty pence to his mouth and grabbed it with both his right canines. The coin tasted horrible, as his tongue brushed against its side, but something was starting to spread into his body; a feeling of calm concentration and keen contemplation. He fiddled the coin so its outer point was facing upwards, and thus began his train of thought:

_Okay, from this room, I can tell that the Iron Queen only relies on herself; since she doesn't let the Iron King sleep with her and monitors the hidden cameras herself._

He then pointed the coin's outer edge down.

_If that's true, then she wouldn't truly rely on anyone else to keep the passage hidden. Maybe, because she will need other people to work the lab, she shows most people another passage that is highly secured but has one that only she knows about._

Up.

_Also, she likes to keep everything under her control, or within eye's reach (like the hidden cameras and the whores she injected)._

Down.

_In that case, there should be an entrance in this very room!_

The left side of his mouth, the one that wasn't holding a coin, smiled with satisfaction, just as he pointed the coin up again.

_Okay, if that's true, then where would she hide it? _His eyes darted around the room, jumping from painting to painting and from bed to door. _She likes French décor, maybe she hides panels behind one of them...No; she wouldn't put something that important behind something so obvious and stereotypical._

He let out a small, impatient sigh, while he fiddled the coin till it faced downwards once more. _If so, then she wouldn't leave it on a computer. Her self-trust must extend to her memory, she only trust her mind to carry her secrets; so there's no point in looking for a diary. So what over personality traits should I look at?_

He tapped his foot on the floor, trying to recall any interaction he had with Iron Queen in the past to give him a trait he could use and analyse. It didn't take long for the coin to tilt towards the ceiling. _In the past, she only ever communicated with me by phone or by image, unless I engaged her directly or if she invited me to face her; which usual means her standing high above me behind bullet proof glass. She hates direct contact that she didn't plan or prepare for..._

Down.

_And the amount of clothes she has are above the usual limit even for a woman and all are made from renowned tailors. Her makeup is also top of the range but she has too many different brands of the same type of makeup that you could call it obsessive. So, she is obsessive with her appearance, meaning she might..._

Up.

_...be Narcissistic! That also explains why she has her own room and why she treats the Iron King as an attack dog; the ugly brute who keeps things stable physically and deals with one-on-one encounters. So, presuming that there are over people in the lab, she would want to look her best before doing anything else._

He walked towards the dressing table, titling the coin down as he went, and thought; _She'd get dressed first, and she'd do it alone; wouldn't trust anyone else due to her narcissism. Then, like any woman who wants to make an impression, she'd put on makeup..._ Welshscot, once reaching his destination, pulled out the dresser's stool with his foot and sat down.

His grey eyes trailed over the labels of the many bottles of perfume, eyeliner and nail polish, while keeping the fifty pence coin facing towards the floor. _No matter what she uses, she'll take a long time; but judging from the fact that there's no trace of dried nail polish on any of the other containers, she puts that on last._

He then focused his eyes onto the mirror, which widened in realisation, along with the coin's movement upwards. _She likes keeping things under her eye... _And what the hybrid's eyes could see, as clearly an as accurate as can be, was the reflection of a single wardrobe, while the others were hidden by his head and the bed.

He jumped to his feet, his face managing to smile with triumph while still keeping the coin lodged between his teeth. Knocking over the stool as he went, Welshscot sprinted to the only wardrobe he had seen in the mirror. As he approached it, and as his eyes flickered to observe the doorknobs, his coin shifted downwards as he vaguely saw a trace of red nail polish. _Even the most precise person can miss a detail when they hurry to do something they enjoy; like waiting for their nails to dry. _He opened the doors and immediately, through the hanging dresses and piles of shoe boxes, saw a suspicious wooden panel.

_Welshald, _he thought, as he leaned in to press the panel. _We've drawn once more. _And as he heard a small click and the sounds of gears coming to life, a smile cracked across his face once more, as the echo of those words kept drawing him to brighter times. When he leaned out of the wardrobe, he saw a section of the wall near the far end of the line of wardrobes begin to move. When the sounds of mechanical mechanisms died out, the hybrid could see an opening into a dark elevator shaft.

Before he did anything else, Welshscot took out the coin with his bandaged hand, handling it with great care like it was made from fragile glass. He took one last look of blissful remembrance at the fifty pence coin before stowing it away into his belt's pouch. When it vanished from view, as he closed the pouch's door, the carved face of barren emotions returned, reclaiming its throne from the small hint of resistance. But even so, as he continued on his mission that was fuelled with anger and worry, a small thought of comfort, comfort of his own needs, was glad that he had found something to remember her by...

Back to the opened doorway, Welshscot leaned over the edge and starred down the shadowed chasm of the elevator shaft. It wasn't going to come any time soon, since the power was out, so eccentric measures are needed. The medic flexed his bandaged fingers, which hid the green scales that had recovered from the English poison, as he looked at the elevator cable; which dangled in the middle of the shaft.

After a quick decision, the medic bent his legs and leapt forwards, his bandaged hand reaching out for the think cable. He easily managed to wrap his fingers around the cable wire, which he soon started to slide down; the force of which causing the bandages around his hand to rip and burn from the heat and friction. But no matter how hard the cable tried to cut into his hand, it was merely an inch against Welshscot's dragon-scaled arm. He was more concerned with the feeling of the wind rushing up past his face and trousers, the air resistance that tried to slow him down and the fear of the bottom which was coming dangerously close.

When his senses informed him of impending ground, he tightened his grip on the wire, causing sparks to fly as scale and wire clashed head on. When he landed on top of the elevator, which was docked on the last floor, his feet barely buckled, but at the price of his bandages being completely ruined, the ashes and small fragments drifting down upon the hybrid's head.

Caring none for lost milk, the medic quickly found the emergency hatch and dropped into the elevator compartment. Thankful that no was there to stall him, Welshscot quickly reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out the Scotch Whiskey. Pulling out the stopper, he quickly took a sip of his native liquor; the taste strong and pleasant to his stomach. That was all he needed, since his muscles were already brimming with energy, so he placed closed the bottle and put it back into his bag. Out of all of the drinks, Scotch was the one that needed the most attention. Too much of it would send the hybrid into a frenzy, giving him stupendous strength but giving him little to no control; attacking friend or foe alike.

But the smallest amount could give him enough strength to deal with most problems, like opening elevator doors that are stuck fast. Grunting, he slid the two doors open and bounded through them before they could try and slide back and trap him. With the adrenaline still pounding through him, he set off to the right, down a darkened, steel walled corridor.

Though the main lights were down, the guards or lab assistants must have been here since there were flares scattered all over the floors. Either they were left to help other guards and personal to see in the dark or the Iron Couple made sure they were left to make a trail for the medic, which will no doubt end in a trap. Fortunately, when he reached a certain corridor, Welshscot found another elevator that was no doubt the main entrance for the guards and lab personnel. Plastered to the wall, he found a detailed map which he recognised from his research with the FF.

_Alright, since the Iron Queen sounded like she was just about to inject CJ, she should still be in the main lab, waiting with an ambush, no doubt. _He wanted to hurry, since his time was almost up, but he knew that he was walking into a trap. Welshscot knew that the guards would be armed with HGO weapons, meaning his bullet proof arm was useless. Adding to the fact that the Iron King, who was a gigantic mobian bull, would also be waiting for him; he needed more time...

An idea came to him, an idea that was crazy and yet brilliant at the same time. Knowing that this would need careful planning and a truck load of luck, the medic pulled out the fifty pence piece and, while smirking confidently again, grabbed it with his teeth and began to devise his plan.

* * *

><p><em>Stop there and let me correct it. I wanna live a life from a new perspective<em> ~Panic! At the Disco

_Death is highly overrated_ ~Random insult I heard while playing Skyrim

* * *

><p><em>Come on, Welshaldy, where are you! These restraints are getting itchy.<em>

Even the hurried thoughts that were racing through CJ's head groaned at her pathetic attempt at humour. That was a sign that she was truly worried, a worry that was growing more and more with every passing second. She tried to struggle against the tight restraints that have here bounded to the white testing slab she was on, but to no avail. Still, it was a better alternative than looking at the ominous machines that surrounded her; especially the ones with sharp pointy needles that were frozen in mid-air and pointing towards her body.

She had been recently unconscious, thanks to a furious Iron Queen who had taken out her anger on her, and had awoken to a semi-darkened room where the only was shinning upon her slab. It hide the many vats of...whatever it was from view and there wasn't anybody around to see her bruised face. There had been others; guards, scientists and Ivan...

She shivered, her hazel coloured eyes shifting in their sockets uncomfortably. She hadn't believed it when she first laid eyes on the pale faced man, as he walked past her 'borrowed' police car. The hacker knew that face anywhere, those acid blue eyes, high cheekbones and army short blonde hair; not to mention an ego that had never stayed behind in high school. For Ivan Pick, he was still the quarterback, the guy who cheerleaders fawned on and the guy who treated other people like dirt. But even so, she knew that Welshaldy had killed him four years ago. The medic may not remember when it happened, he didn't really care about the date, but he remembered the fact that he killed Ivan. And now he was walking about, and next thing CJ knew he was barging into one of her safe-houses which lead her waking up on a slab, just a small stab away from being turned into one of the Iron Queens whores.

Suddenly, to CJ horror, a humming started to fill the room and light and life began to return to the machines. With her vision now accompanied with a low, techno glow, the hacker could see once more the towering grey vats and the huge glass window that was placed high above the south side of the room. Behind the glass was a room, which was still dark, were the Iron couple could look over each lab while stuffing their faces with expensive food and drink. Even though CJ knew that a person was needed to operate the nanites injection machine, she didn't like the feeling of needles, which were now ready to be used, pointing at her; like a fly waiting for a mosquito to pounce and drink its blood...

CRASH!

If there had been a collar around CJ's neck, it might have snapped when she spun her head to the left where the loud crash had originated. Thanks to the new lights, her hazel eyes could see that the cause of the noise was a steel door, which had once stood tall and proud, but now lay flat and broken on the lab floor. And the door's bane was unmistakably—

"Welshaldy!"

"Es Welshscot, maldita sea!" **(It's 'Welshscot', dammit!)**

Now, anyone else would have been taken aback or would have tried to clean out their ears, (which would be difficult when your hands are bound to a slab); but CJ has known the hybrid since he had been born. It didn't matter what he did or say, the hacker had long since stopped raising her eyebrows in shock or back away in fear (unless someone has slipped him Aloe Vera).

This particular oddity was something that CJ had witnessed many times. Talking in fluent Spanish, the new scale colour of his right arm, of tarnished gold and firebrand red; it was clear that he had drunken some Spanish sherry. The effects of this liquor was similar to scotch whiskey, except the medic's speed and strength was greater and he could only channel this into a single charge in one straight direction, like a bull charging at a red cape of a bull fighter. That explained how the strong, steel door was smashed from its hinges like a rotting brick wall.

As CJ watched her friend/brother run towards her, his scaled arm turning back to its usual green state, her heart began to swell with gratitude. But due to her small pride of face, she left out an annoyed huff and muttered, "You're late; I was expecting to see you five minutes ago. Did you want me to become a mindless, sex craving whore or somethin'?"

The ginger managed to curl his lip into a bemused smile, something that CJ was grateful to see, while he replied, "I thought about it, since it's the only way you'll ever get a boyfriend, but I decided that I prefer you as a spinster."

The hacker flexed her fingers like she was raising her hands in mock sarcasm. "Hooray, my virginity is safe." This did not steer any more emotion out of Welshscot, whose face returned to its mask-like form as he reached the slab and began to release the restraints on his friend. CJ was slightly saddened by this, which she managed to hide in the relief of being freed from her imprisonment.

Still, as she swung her legs off the slab after the last restraint had been opened, all she could think about was how Welshscot, the old Welshscot, would have reacted to her last quip. He might have chuckled softly, might have joined in on her sarcastic parade or would have done anything that could have expressed any kind of emotion. He never told Welshscot this, but she had always enjoyed looking at how his aura of emotion, which she could see due to her empathy powers, would change and transform; always so bright, always so colourful and always so easy to read. But now he had no aura, no pattern of bright colours that hung from his body; he didn't even have a trace of grey or black. And if she tried to dull deeper, he would block her. Once, when she kept on trying to read him, the hybrid had forced her out by giving her a backlash of pain through her nerves. Welshscot had changed so much, ever since...

CJ was just stretching her legs, her eyes finally trailing along the floor, when she saw something that froze her solid. Welshscot, who had been aware long before she had, grabbed CJ by the shoulder and pulled her behind him, making himself a barrier between the hacker and the sight before them both.

The guards and scientist, who CJ had presumed to have left to other labs, were lying in a big, bloody heap, their bodies and clothes torn and shredded. Great chunks of flesh were missing from all over their bodies, the faces being the spot where all had been taken...or eaten. But their eyes were still in their sockets and the brains were still untouched, left to hide in their cages. The same can't be said for the stomachs which, unlike the rest of the organs, had been ripped clean from their dead bodies and, due to their lack of presence, been consumed, the splatters of blood and acid fleck around the room.

CJ was just wondering how she could have ignored the putrid smell of rotting flesh, when a gruff, gnarly voice boomed from out of nowhere, saying, "And what have we here? The little Drake rescuing the puny hacker; how touching."

Up above CJ and Welshscot, from behind the bullet proof window, a light suddenly sparked into life. The highly furnished room was finally visible as well as the two 'people' that resided within. The one that was most visible was a towering, leathery brown mobian ox, who wore a huge, steel grey suit that looked like old fashioned armour. His face bore many scars, some bigger than others, but the way they were carved into the Iron King's face made it look like he was born with them.

The other figure, who stood closer to the glass and smiled evilly down upon CJ and Welshscot, wore a crimson dress with black horizontal lines which looked like it came from the most expensive tailor in the land. Her face was covered with just as expensive products, which did nothing to hide her pointed, cruel features or stop her yellow eyes from producing a controlling glare.

The Iron Queen raised her long fingers and trailed them against the glass that separated her and the Iron King from the hybrid's reach. "So, Welshaldy, what do you think of my little collection of HGO dust?" Her husband discreetly shot an angry look but said nothing.

With moving the rest of his body, Welshscot casted his grey eyes around the lab and counted seven grey vats; seven vats full of seven types of HGO dust. He noticed that each vat had a different colour, like cloudy green, cyan blue or deep purple. But he soon turned his eyes back to the Iron couple, his gaze as blank as a canvas.

After a short pause, the Iron Queen took a step back, as if she had wanted her comment to get the hybrid riled up. "Clearly," she said, in a haughty voice, "you're star struck by my..." The Iron King popped his knuckles, "...by our success," corrected the techno whore.

"I'm more struck by the pile of bodies," replied Welshscot; his tone blank and unyielding. "I knew your hubby loved pork, but I didn't know he liked it long."

Before she could say anything, the Iron King took the stage. He moved closer towards the glass and fixed his pale eyes upon CJ and Welshscot, his gaze brimming with pent-up blood lust. "Oh no, little Drake," came his gnarly, rough voice, "I would never put their pathetic bones anywhere near my mouth."

Welshscot's fingers fidgeted slightly at the use of the word drake; a hated pet name used by his damned mother. The Iron Queen frowned, upset that her husband had deprived her of the joy of wheedling emotion out of the hybrid. As if he could feel her displeasure, the giant ox smiled and continued to bathe in the spotlight. "But since you want to know, I think you've deserved a little reward for your efforts."

"Sure, why not? It's been a long time, better late than never for a reunion."

While CJ's eyes widened in shock and horror with a natural ease, Welshscot had to fight to keep his eyes from burning with anger and resentment as he, and his friend, turned to face the door the medic had burst through. Standing on the flattened door, his low cut blonde hair laced with grim and blood dripping from his lips and onto his ragged clothes, was Ivan Pick. His acid blue eyes were fixed upon the hybrid's own grey orbs; the latter aimed at the floor behind Ivan, which held no shadow.

The blonde widened his mouth, showing yellowing teeth that was dripping in blood. "Hello, Welshscot. Didn't expect to see me again, did you?" When the hybrid didn't reply, still continuing his emotionless stare, Ivan let off a disappointed snort. "Where are the clever comebacks you always say? What happened to that glare of disgust you always saved for me?" He took a step forwards, flexing his fingers like he was imagining what it would be like when he tore them through the medic's face. He turned his leer to CJ, and taunted, "But I must say, I like your petrified eyes, CJ; makes you look...tasty." He licked his lips, his tongue gliding on the dried patches of blood that covered his chin.

The ex-cop, whose eyes had begun to dart to the shoulder bag that hung off Welshscot's shoulder, began to tighten her fists, trying to suppress her fear of the zombie in front of her. "Thanks, Ivan," sarcastically replied CJ; whose voice was trimmed with fright. "You're a man after my own heart. But to be honest..." Suddenly, CJ lunged for Welshscot's shoulder bag. Before Ivan or Welshscot could do or say anything, the ex-cop pulled out a silver beretta, turned its sight towards Ivan's chest, released the safety and, with a determined look in her eyes, fired bullet after bullet at the place where a heart should be.

Her training finally showed its worth as the pieces of lead she'd fired slammed into the zombie blonde's chest. CJ emptied her borrowed gun, her thoughts teaming with triumph and accomplishment. She didn't really know what she was getting the most kick out of: the fact that she had just destroyed the heart of a total bastard or that she had destroyed the heart of a total bastard without Welshscot's help. Sure, he provided the gun and had released her in the first place. But she could fight her own battles; Welshscot didn't need to put himself out for her like he always did for everyone else...

CJ lowered her gun, her hands shaking like they had been dipped in cold ice. Her eyes could not help but widen again, as they stared at Ivan, who was still standing tall; his face wide with a bloody smirk. _No, _thought CJ, _how can he still be standing? There's no way I missed his heart; he should be a skeleton or a mouldy corpse._

Ivan looked down at his bullet torn shirt, his dead blue eyes filled with a mirth that came with a sick, private joke. Looking back up at CJ and Welshscot, the zombie let off a mad cackle of laughter. "Ha, so the little hacker has some bite to back up her bark, eh? I mean, you did have great aim. But..." He then grabbed his ragged shirt and ripped it off; revealing an array of stitches that were sown into the pale stretch of skin that covered his heart. With his audience watching, which only had one person who was showing apprehension and disgust, the blonde zombie grabbed the stitched strewn skin; whilst muttering, darkly, "...it was you who said that I didn't have a heart..."

With that, Ivan pulled. Blood, flesh and stitches spewed out of the new opening in the zombie's chest; showing a sight that sickened CJ to the bone and make Welshscot show a single flash of fear. When the blood stopped flowing, the duo had a clear view of a wretched pair of blackened lungs and a rib cage that was completely smothered in a dry, lumpy tar; the kind that boiled and frothed in the city's tar pits. But the sight that was most horrifying was the complete lack of a small, pulsating heart.

Inside Welshscot's head, he was cursing every single thing to do with voodoo. _Fuck the loa, Argus, Enlil and every demon in the world! This goes against every rule in the book: I tore out his heart and stomped on it, his body shouldn't be usable since I crushed his heart. No one, not even Darken, has the power to perform a resurrection without a heart; hell, make that a body for that matter. _But no matter how impossible it was, Ivan Pick was standing before him; putting back the patch of skin that covered the hole in his chest. The hybrid had never really cared heads or tails about Ivan, not until the blonde prick did what he did four years ago. His hate for him was just as strong as the hate for his mother; but unlike his mother, Ivan seemed almost invincible. No matter what the hybrid does or tries, the blonde zombie would never be vanquished since his heart was hidden somewhere else. And unless he can destroy the heart, Ivan will continue to plague and hunt Welshscot until his last breath.

As Ivan pushed the stitches of his skin patch into his chest, the Iron couple, who were still where they were, finally returned to the spot light. The Iron King was the one, who grabbed the bull by the horns, as he eyed the weapon in CJ's shaky grip. In his deep, gruff voice, which took the three people on the ground floor by surprise, he said: "If I'm not mistaken, that is one of my Beretta 92S, semi-automatic fire with a range of 50m, extended clip that can hold eleven bullets and infused with my special performance enhancer." He then moved his eyes to Welshscot's shoulder bag and an evil smirk appeared. "Now, if my memory serves me correctly, your favourite tacit is to sneak up and steal the weapons off your enemies and use it against them; sometimes keeping them to use later..."

The Iron King gave off a loud bark of laughter, as he raised his left hand into the air. CJ, who was keeping an eye on both the Iron couple and Ivan while the medic focused entirely on the ox mobian, was shocked when she saw a faint orange glow surround the Iron King's raised hand. A sudden surge of heat made the hacker turn her eyes to the weapon in her hand, which, to her confusion, was starting to glow orange as well.

But nothing happened for a precious few moments, as the giant ox mobian's face was set in a frown. He had wanted to stir some emotion in the hybrid's face, a challenge that he and his wife had taken on two years ago, but he was puzzled to why the hybrid's lips were curved in an unmistakable grin. The Iron King suddenly had a wrenching feeling of danger in his gut. Knowing how the hybrid was as random as English weather, the Iron King acted as fast as he could; closing his orange-shrouded hand into a fist.

But while the mobian ox had hesitated, Welshscot made his move. Without a word of warning, he turned towards CJ, grabbed the gun from her hand and threw it at the bullet proof glass that protected the Iron couple. He then turned his focus onto his shoulder bag. But before he could do anything else, the Iron King had curled his hand into a fist.

The pistol that Welshscot had thrown exploded, the orange Wisp DNA fulfilling its purpose. The force of its detonation barely managed to crack the glass that protected the Iron couple. For a single moment, the Iron King pictured the sight of the hybrid and his friend being blown apart, when the guns in the shoulder bag joined in on the explosions. However, just as the pistol exploded, the back wall of the Iron couple's room blew apart.

The Iron Queen was lucky that she had moved closer to the glass, her small attempt to take the spotlight. She was still blasted off her feet by the force of the explosion that had blown a chunk of the back wall, the rubble and plaster ruining her crimson dress and makeup, but her pride was wounded more than her life. The Iron King, having an unnatural endurance that made him near invulnerable, was not fazed by explosion; even though it had scared him shitless.

After the dust of the explosion had settled, the Iron King turned an angry set of eyes towards the hybrid; uninterested of his so-called wife's safety. Welshscot, who was smirking slightly, lowered his scaled hand to his shoulder bag's opening and flipped it open. CJ, who didn't know about the HGO guns, was wondering why a bag full of butterfly knives was causing the Iron King to seethe with fury. But from the ox's point of view, he knew what had happened. _That welt must have suspected that I had booby-trapped all of my weapons, _growled the Iron King in his mind. _So he left the weapons he had collected in the corridor passage that runs by this room but kept one for him to use, just in case his suspicions were right. _The Iron King cracked his fists, menacingly. _And he thought that'd be enough to defeat me? What insolence! _

And with a feral roar, the ox raised his fist and punched the bullet proof glass; which shattered under his blow like fragile clay. The glass didn't do much to harm Welshscot or CJ, despite the force of the Iron King's blow. But truth be told, no one heard the little fragments of glass hit the floor, due to the booming roar of the Iron King. "WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT USELESS TRICK, WELT! I AM NOT LIKE MY WIFE; I DON'T FALTER LIKE A WEED IF MY GARMENTS GET DIRTY!"

Despite the sheer power of the ox's voice, the three people below didn't really pay attention; either because they were utterly confused or were trying to make sure a certain zombie didn't make a sudden sneak attacks. But Ivan hadn't moved an inch, his blue eyes were just staring at Welshscot, trying to imagine how the medic's flesh would taste like.

Welshscot then turned to CJ, his face back to its blank state, while he reached into his shoulder bag and took out one of the butterfly knives. "Check my left pocket," he said quickly, while flipping open his chosen knife. "Turn on my phone and look for the picture titled 'one'. Show it to Lacy and then bring her with you, got it?"

CJ didn't need to be more confused than she was now. "Welshaldy, what the hell does that—" But the hybrid cut then her short...literally. Without any warning, Welshscot turned the knife in his hand and, in one move, flashed it across the hacker's gullet. CJ didn't even have time to try and stop her throat from bleeding, since her eyes lost their life in a second. However, before her soul left her body, she saw Welshscot mouth two words...

_Mental Echo._


	25. Iron Domain Part II

**domi|note**

This chapter was entirely written by **Welshscot**.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>Anger ventilated often hurries toward forgiveness; and concealed often hardens into revenge. ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twenty Five  
>.<em>  
>"It gives the weak flight. It gives the blind sight. Until the cops come. Or by the last light. And for the last night I lie. Could I lie next to you?"<br>…_  
>Written by Welshscot<em>

* * *

><p><em>One hour later<em>

In the exact same room, a moleskin-gloved hand was being pulled away from the slit throat of CJ, whose body seemed to have been feasted on by the blonde zombie that Hjalmar saw during his time for CJ's point of view. The Norwegian's face may be hidden by his ski mask, but his tone was all that was need to make his anger and surprise known. "It was Welshscot!"

This revelation caused quite an uproar amongst the Freedom Fighters. Finding out that one of their allies, whose early charge caused the police and Egg Prawns to gather at the Iron Domain before the FF got there, had killed the person they were trying to save ...Well how would you react?

Antoine, who had been investigating the Iron couple's panic room (mainly trying to discover what had caused the hole in the wall), let off a string of curses that were lost in his thick accent. His wife, who was in cover at the side of the main door, keeping an eye and gun out in case another cop appeared, growled, saying, "What in the Argus's name is he playin' at? I thought we're trying to save CJ, or did I miss something?"

Sally would have shared her thoughts if she wasn't trying to make sure Nicole didn't bleed out. The lynx had been one of the only survivors of the police's recent counter attack. After breaking through the barrier of cops and robots that surrounded the Iron Domain, and once they had fought and found their way into the secret labs, the FF members who hadn't managed to escape back to base were now trapped inside the main lab. It could have been worse if the Iron couple had remained, but luckily (for the FF) they escaped somehow, leaving the vigilantes with a room full of empty vats and a pile of dead, slightly eaten bodies.

But that still didn't stop the bleak outcome that was sure to come. Though Rotor and a small number of the gang had gotten away, this looked like the end of the Freedom Fighters. Many, new recruits and seasoned veterans, had been shot down like rabbits; their combined strength no match for the overwhelming number of cops and Egg prawns. To Sally's knowledge, only she, Nicole (who was severely injured), Antoine, Bunnie and Hjalmar were alive...

Bunnie's anger, which was raging with grief and fury, sharpened her senses, allowing her to her a set of approaching footsteps. Gripping her Gauge shotgun, she spun out of cover, ready to blow the brains from her enemy. But before she pulled the trigger, a low, tired voice shouted, "Don't shoot! It's me, Kelp!"

Bunnie didn't lower her weapon, but she didn't use it on the black clothed tiger. His fur laced with sweat and his clothes, mainly the cuffs of his black sports trousers, were sodden with blood. But besides that, Kelp looked fine; also annoyed, since Bunnie hadn't lowered her shotgun. Though she was glad to see that someone else was alive, a small part of her wasn't glad that Kelp was one of the survivors. The bionic armed woman didn't like or trust Kelp, for past endeavours and situations, and never liked it when he was carrying a shotgun on his back, two SMGs and a revolver on his belt or when he had an assault rifle in his hand.

Before Kelp or Bunnie could say a word, which would probably lead to a nasty situation, Lacy appeared from behind the tiger, wearing a confused expression due to the scene before her. "Err, hello?" she chimed, while waving her hand between the stare of Kelp and Bunnie. "We're trying to run for our lives from the cops. Why are you two having a staring contest?"

Bunnie gave an incredulous look at the flamingo, while lowering her shotgun without meaning to. Kelp snorted at Lacy, who must be completely oblivious to Bunnie's distrust of the tiger, and asked, "Lacy, we're in the middle of a war zone. We weren't having a staring contest."

"You were!" accused the flamingo, beginning to walk past Bunnie, who seemed a little taken a back at how calm Lacy was. "I may be a little dim, but even I know that starting into each other's eyes is the start of a staring contest. If you really want to do it, though, do it behind cover and not in the open. Do you want to get shot?"

Kelp rolled his eyes and began to follow her lead, waltzing past Bunnie without a second thought. "Says the girl who doesn't know how to fire a gun," retorted the tiger, who took more interest in the conversation with his partner than the scene of carnage that was present.

"How was I supposed to know about that little 'safety catch' thingamabob, or that it would jerk back every time I pulled the trigger?"

"...Okay, why, in the Cage's name, did you come to a gun fight without knowing how to use a gun? It takes training to use even a pistol without hurting yourself; this isn't some cheap-skate first-person shooter."

"How was I supposed to know I needed training?"

"The Loa be damned, everyone here, besides you, knows how to use a gun! I've been saving your hide..."

"I don't know how to use a gun," joined in Hjalmar, who had walked over to Kelp and Lacy from CJ's dead. He talked in a casual tone, like he had forgotten that one of his closest friends had been killed by his best friend. Antoine was just as bemused as his wife, the latter having the sense to return to watch the entrance, but Sally and Nicole were not amused. But a small amount of faith in the Norwegian, that he would bring the two back to the present, stopped the FF's leader from barking orders at the flamingo and tiger.

Kelp turned to Hjalmar, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

"Serious; the only time I used a gun and I broke my wrist. So I stick to hand-to-hand and knives, cutting open flesh is more up my street. If someone's too far away, I throw my knives instead or use a grenade."

Before Kelp could say any comment of disbelief, Lacy suddenly gasped in horror. "Oh my gosh, Welshscot!" Everyone sharply turned their heads in the direction that Lacy was pointing, resulting in their faces curling into the same look of disgust and shock as the flamingo's face. In between two of the empty grey vats, there was a body that looked like it had been feasted on by wolves. There was no trace of skin or hair, only the bloody exposed innards and muscles which bore many bite marks. The skull looked like it had been scalped, leaving a clear view of a skull that look more or less untouched; not counting the empty eye sockets or the missing Adam's apple. The stomach was the most mutilated, the intestines spewed all over the floor along with puddles of stomach acid that belonged to a missing stomach. The only way they managed to identify the corpse as Welshscot was his left arm. Though most of them were missing, ripped off from his dead body, there were still a few small scales that clung to the hybrid's butchered arm.

Lacy stared at the body, her eyes sliding into focus like coming out of a long dream, and whimpered slightly. As if just realising where she was, she looked around and saw the managed pile of bodies, smelt the putrid flesh and heard the flies that were feasting on the dead. Shaken, the flamingo began to shiver and back away from the corpse. She turned round and, to Kelp surprise, buried her head into the tiger's shoulder. It was to everyone else's surprise, everyone's except Hjalmar, that Kelp didn't try to shake her off. In fact, the tiger gave her a small, comforting pat on the shoulder, his awkward feeling shinning from his face.

Hjalmar, however, walked over to his friend's corpse. He knelt down besides it and started at the skin-less face; as emotionless in death as it had been in life. The Norwegian didn't feel sad, he had seen Welshscot's dead body before, but it was the first time he had seen his friend's dead body since two years ago; the time when he had dawned his blank mask. _Even if I save you, _thought the forensic, sombrely. _Even if I bring you back, am I bringing back Welshscot? Or did you die all those years ago, leaving a body that it's just an empty shell of the man I knew, my best friend?_

It was a short while before sound returned to the room, the sound being the whizzing speed of a bullet that missed Bunnie's head by an inch. Cursing, the mobian turned her attention to the exit and began to fire into the corridor, where a bunch of cops were forcing their way through to their lab.

Wasting no more time, Hjalmar remembered Welshscot's final words before the Norwegian's mental echo had ended. He swiftly reached for the hybrid's trousers and found the phone he was looking for, the only thing that looked untouched. Opening it, Hjalmar soon found the photo file. There was only one photo and it took him a while to figure out what it was of. He turned to the Iron couple's deserted panic room, where Antoine was raining bullets from at the lab's exit, and saw the wall through the massive hole in the back of the panic room's wall.

While the forensic tried to figure out why Welshscot had left him this clue, Kelp had long since pushed Lacy from him. With his assault rifle in hand, he joined Bunnie and Antoine in there defence against the horde of cops that were trying to get down through the exit. Lacy managed to dive out of the firing range, and as she gotten herself off the ground, Hjalmar grabbed her by the shoulder. "Look at this," he ordered, waving the phone's picture in her face. Lacy, though highly disgruntled, did what she was asked and started at the photo, which was quickly locked in place in her memory.

Then, Hjalmar pointed to CJ's corpse, which was lying in front of the exit, and shouted, "Listen, I don't know why, but Welshscot told me to bring you along while I use Mental Echo again!"

"What's Mental Echo!" replied the flamingo, who could barely hear herself think, thanks to the loud barrage of gunfire.

"It's an ability that allows me to travel back in time into the body of someone who has died! After I touch a dead person, I can go back in time from their point of view and stop them from dying!" Just as he finished speaking, a stray bullet flew the open exit door and slammed into Antoine's arm. He fell to his knees, clutching his wound in pain.

Hjalmar quickly returned to the conversation. "But, if someone is touching me while I touch a dead person, they can travel back with me to their own point of view in the past! Welshscot told me, just before he killed CJ, that he wants me to bring you back with me, and it has something to do with the picture I showed you."

Before Lacy had time to reply or protest, Hjalmar grabbed Lacy and pulled her towards CJ's dead body. A cop in the corridor saw this and tried to take a shot, but Kelp nailed him in the head before the cop could even line up the shot. Seeing that Hjalmar was trying to move forwards, Kelp decided to give them as much cover as he could provide.

Reloading his weapon and after shouting out, "Come on, ya pigs!" Kelp charged towards the exit, firing round after round at the cops. Three fell before Kelp was shot in the side. Dropping his rife, grunting in pain, Kelp just pulled out one of the revolver's on his belt and continued his attack. He fired twice before the cops shot both his legs.

Before Hjalmar touched CJ's body again, to try and save her again and prevent this time from ever happening, Lacy turned her eyes on Kelp, just in time to see two bullets slam into his skull. She watched, in horror, how Kelp's body slumped to the side, lifeless and broke. She didn't have time to scream, or have time to even process what she saw, when the Norwegian's gloved fingers touched CJ's rotting flesh.

(1 hour and ten minutes ago: at the exit of the Knotcorn Garage)

Lacy Poole let out a small yelp as a bitter cold suddenly flared inside her heart. Clutching her chest in protest of the unexpected chill, the flamingo almost knocked into one of her fellow Freedom Fighters. Thought one of them shouted, "Oi, watch it, "Lacy barely heard it as memories from another time flooded into her. In her mind's eye, she saw an attack on the Iron Domain that hadn't happened yet, saw how it had ended in failure; and, to her total shock, saw an image of Kelp being gunned down in her defence.

As she began taken in deep breaths, she heard a voice from beside her, saying, "Hey, we gotta a whore house to raid; stop dawdling." Turning sharply, Lacy eyes' soon laid upon Kelp, who looked quite alive and very annoyed.

The flamingo then realised where she was, or where she had been, since she had just come from the future. It was the Knotcorn's main garage, where they stored all their gears and gathered into before they leave to attack. All of the members were gathering near the main garage door, where Sally, Nicole and the other Lieutenants were standing, giving one last word of comfort and encouragement. Lacy and Kelp were at the back of the large crowd, Kelp just as armed as he was in the future, which will hopefully be changed.

Seeing that Lacy was distressed about something, the tiger sighed and softened his tone a little. "Lacy, what's wrong? Having trouble finding a spare gun, or somethin'?"

She didn't answer, her brain too busy trying to solve her current problem. _Why did Welshscot want me to go to the past? _thought the flamingo, as she scratched her head in wonder. _How could I possible change what happened? Why did he show me a photo of the wall behind the back wall of the panic room that looked like it was taken at this time, in the past? Well...Maybe I should ask him?_

Kelp, who had begun to wave his hand before her eyes, was taken aback by Lacy's sudden movement. He watched her, slightly bemused, as she jogged towards the wall. He was about to call out to her, to ask her what she was doing, when he saw something that boggled him no end.

Having reached the wall, the flamingo had stopped, drawn back her right fist and slammed it into the solid surface. From the point where her fist met the plaster, a rippling effect shot through the wall and even into the air. Then, a square shaped hole expanded in the wall. Even though Kelp couldn't properly see it, Lacy saw a view of the wall, the back of the panic room wall, that had been partly destroyed and the corridor that ran alongside it. But what drew her eye the most in this darkened scene was...

"Welshscot, you're alive!"

This drew the attention to all of the other Freedom Fighters. Curious, the crowd started to swarm towards Lacy; the leader of which being Kelp, Sally (who had managed to get her way past her gang) and Hjalmar. When they joined the flamingo's side, they took a step back, closed their eyes and opened them again. For they saw the unmistakable face of Welshscot, who was managing not to show the same surprise as the others felt.

With her hands on her hips, Lacy started to speak sternly to the hybrid; like a mother telling off a naught child. "Now listen here, mister, I don't like cryptic messages or being dragged through time without my consent. Nor do I like the fact that you charged ahead of us and got most of us killed, and you even killed the person we were trying to save. Though I'm glad you don't look like you've been used as a chew toy, I still want to know why you wanted me to come along with Hjalmar." She then began to tap her foot impatiently, completely ignorant of the stares of her colleagues.

Welshscot, though he hid it, was completely baffled by Lacy statement. To give himself some time to think, he looked behind him at the pile of weapons he had just taken out of his shoulder bag and put down. Guessing that they were rigged with orange HGO dust, he had decided to leave them here, so when the Iron King would try to detonate them, he would hopefully blow himself, and the Iron Queen, up.

While Welshscot did that, Kelp managed to break from his stupor. Staring at his partner, he asked, incredulously, "Lacy, what the hell did you do? How is Welshscot right before us, but still at the Iron Domain?"

Lacy paused before answering, before face palming herself. "Oh, of course," realised the flamingo, "I didn't tell you guys, did I? I can break the fourth wall."

It took awhile for that statement to sink in. Hjalmar managed to absorb it first, allowing him to say, "Wait, does that mean you have the ability to open portals through time and space?"

She nodded, completely unembarrassed that she was revealing that she was a mutant. "That's right, but I can only open portals in places I've seen and I can only open small holes to the future or past, so I can't time travel." She then turned to the hybrid, her stern tone in play, and said, "But anyway; tell me why you wanted Hjalmar to drag me back into the past!"

Upon hearing this, the Norwegian finally figured out what she was talking about. Turning to the other Freedom Fighters, who were still slightly stunned, the forensic calmly announced, "Mental Echo." That was all they needed. Though they were still coming to grips with the flamingo's power, the Freedom Fighters, and Welshscot, began to understand some of what Lacy had said.

With Kelp's help, by managing to calm his partner down, they soon got a full account of what had accrued in the future. From the main attack, to being forced into the secret labs (many of the Freedom Fighter's shivered at the thought that they had actually died) and discovering that Welshscot had killed CJ (which earned him a savage eye from everyone), Lacy quickly yet efficiently told her story in a way that captivated her audience.

When she finished, the hybrid had already pieced together the puzzle. "The reason why I must have asked Hjalmar to bring you back to the past..." he began; his tone blank as ever. "...Must be because I wanted you to open a portal here, so you guys don't have to fight through the cops." He turned to the wall behind him, his eyes upon the small pile of rigged weapons. "And also," he continued, "to ambush the Iron Couple when the wall explodes."

"But how did you know about my powers before hand?" asked Lacy. "You, I mean your future you, couldn't have made your, his, plan if he didn't know about my powers. I mean, you only found out just now."

The hybrid was about to answer when his phone rang. He quickly took it out, flipped it open and read the message he had just been sent. His face didn't show anything, but he quickly satisfied the FF's curiosity. Reading aloud, he said, "Lacy Poole is a fourth wall breaker. Take picture of any wall inside of the lab and leave a note for your husky friend, he'll do the rest."

While muttering began to surge through the ranks of the FF, the hybrid wondered: _Who the hell sent this, and how did they know about Lacy and Hjalmar? _But that mystery was for another time. Putting his phone away, the hybrid addressed Sally. "Sally, get your gang ready to shoot the Iron King to the Cage. We want then both alive, but the Iron King needs to be taken down a notch." The squirrel mobian nodded. She remembered the last time she had fought the Iron King. With his unnatural endurance, it had taken ten people to even stun the hulking brute.

With a final nod to the Freedom Fighters, the hybrid began to run down the corridor, sprinting as fast as he could so he could get to CJ in time. After he had turned round the corner, Lacy stood to the side of her portal and gestured her fellow gang members to step through. After a slight hesitation, Rotor silently volunteered to go first. He slowly took a step through the portal, his feet transferring from the stone garage floor to the metal plated corridors of the Iron Domain's secret lab.

As the others started to shuffle through, Kelp moved to the flamingo's side. His arms were folded, but his face wasn't unpleasant in anyway. "So," he stated, suddenly, "looks like you have a use after all."

Lacy nodded. "Yep, makes up for the fact that I can't use a gun."

Kelp turned a set of disbelieving eyes upon his partner. "I still can't believe you joined a gang and didn't bother to ask how to use a gun. Everyone else either knew before hand or asked to learn how before joining any attacks."

Lacy smiled a little. "You might want to tell Hjalmar that."

* * *

><p><em>If at first you don't succeed, try and try again~ <em>unknown

_The Jetset life is gonna kill you~ _My Chemical Romance

* * *

><p>"WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT USELESS TRICK, WELT!" Roared the Iron King, as the dust from the explosion settled and the glass from the bullet proof window had hit the floor. Well...that point was soon shown.<p>

Before the Iron King could finish his sentence, a volley of bullets shot from the hole in the wall. Crying out in surprise and pain, the force of the sudden barrage caused the giant ox to stagger forwards, thus causing the fall that followed. Before his cries of surprise turned to one of fear, the Iron King landed face first upon the bed of glass that he himself had made. Though his chest movement slowed and the blood that dripped from his mouth made a puddle, the Iron King was not dead, but wounded nonetheless.

His wife, who was still recovering from the sudden, violent events, was not prepared for what occtured next. As she tried to wipe of the dust that had ruined her dress, a person charged through the hole; a person she knew well. Before she could even say a word, Nicole slammed the butt of her 12 Gauge shotgun into whore's face. Screaming in pain, the Iron Queen fell back onto the floor, holding her broken and bleeding nose. Nicole, whose face was set with a look of deepest loathing, aimed the gun at the techno whore's face and uttered, darkly, "Give me one more reason to shoot you, and I swear to the Gods I will."

Back on the lab's main floor, where Welshscot, Ivan Pick and CJ were standing, the latter suddenly shook her head, as if a dream had just released its hold on her. "What the..." she muttered, dozily. "...What was I just doing? It feels like Hjalmar used Mental Echo on me..." Her eyes then widened in realization, then frustration. "Oh, come on, why the hell do I keep getting killed!"

"Probably because of me!"

CJ spun round, just as Ivan pounced at her, his blue eyes burning with hunger, shining with the intent of devouring the hacker. CJ screamed and tried to back away, but it was all in vain. Just as Ivan's fingers were about to reach the hacker, Welshscot elbowed him with his scaled arm, resulting in his shoulder bag to fly off. The blonde zombie was sent spinning to the side, letting off an angry hiss as he went.

Welshscot quickly put himself before CJ and Ivan, his face sill blank but his eyes were kindling with a fierce rage. The brown haired hacker stared at the two males in front of her, who were both looking like they were getting ready to take the other apart. CJ didn't know how she could help her friend, but she felt that she couldn't just leave him to face that monster. She wasn't going to be helpless—

Suddenly, the floor beneath her seemed to vanish and CJ began to fall downwards. Next thing she knew, CJ was stumbling forwards into Hjalmar. The Norwegian managed to catch his friend before she fell over, a smile starting to curl behind his ski mask. "You okay, CJ?" asked Hjalmar, as she managed to quickly get to her feet.

Still trying to get her thoughts together, the hacker just nodded. She then looked around and saw some familiar faces and some not, but they all belonged to the Freedom Fighters. The only face that brought any discomfort was the Iron Queen's, but she was being held under guard by Nicole; who looked like she was waiting for the slightest excuse to blow the techno whore's brains out. But the one that managed to stick out the most was the face of the pink flamingo, whom suddenly bounded forwards out of nowhere.

"Hi," she greeted, "My name's Lacy Poole. I take it your CJ, and if so, I'm glad to meet you. If you're wondering how you got to here from down there..." Lacy pointed to the wall behind her, which had a square shaped view of the ceiling of the lab. "...I have the ability to break the fourth wall and punch portals into surfaces. I didn't want to see you get caught up in the fight, so I portaled you out of there."

At these words, a sense of urgency returned to CJ. She pulled herself away from Hjalmar and stared down at Ivan and Welshscot, who were engaged in a savage fist fight. As she watched Welshscot side kick his foe in the stomach, she heard her friend roar, in a tone of vivid anger: "I'm surprised you have the backbone to face me! Looks like I'm gonna have to rip it out again!" Those words sent a shiver through everyone's spine and a gruesome image began to conjure itself up in Hjalmar's and CJ's head.

Sally looked down at Welshscot, biting her lip slightly, before turning her eyes to the grey vats that lined the lab's walls. Since the panic room was placed above the tops of the vats, the squirrel saw the glowing contents of HGO DNA. Taking a deep breath, she turned to her gang and barked, "Okay, people, we need to spread out and find any Wisps that are still alive! Antoine, Bunnie, I need you two to take a team and search the west facilities for Wisps or survivors. If they resist, kill them, but take prisoners when you can."

The coyote and the rabbit nodded. Before they left, however, Rotor stopped them. "Wait," he cried, "take this phone with you. When you find any Wisps, take a picture of a nearby wall and sent it to this phone." The Walrus then handed them one phone, but gave the other to Lacy. At once, Bunnie and her husband understood. With Lacy's power, they could fast travel faster as long as they sent her the image of their location.

When they left with a chosen band of regular Freedom Fighters, Sally turned to Nicole. "Lacy!" she shouted, while keeping a hateful eye upon the Iron Queen. "Help Nicole get back to the Knotcorn so she can put this bitch in a cell. Then the both of you come back, we need your help here—"

"What about Welshscot!" interrupted CJ, who was angrily pointing at the battle that was raging in the main lab below them. "He needs our help!"

"Welshscot can take care of himself," replied Sally. But as she said this, a cry of pain emitted from down below. Ivan, who was smiling insanely, had managed to rip off the hybrid's belt with his own teeth. Though the medic managed to shake him off before he did any real damage, Welshscot had now lost his supply of alcohol.

Seeing this, Hjalmar turned on his heels and headed towards the hole in the back wall of the panic room. "I'm going to help him," stated the forensic.

"No," replied Sally firmly. "I need you to help Rotor and I secure the east side. Welshscot took care of Ivan before—"

"That was when he was alive," grunted the forensic. "He's now a zombie and a zombie with no heart. If you remember when he explained to you the fact that zombies can only be killed by destroying their hearts, then you'd realise that Ivan is impossible to defeat!"

Lacy looked down at Ivan and shrugged her shoulders. "Then shoot them in the head. Flesh eating zombies always die if you shoot them in the head."

Hjalmar laughed, humorously. "This isn't Resident Evil. Zombies can't be killed by shooting them in the head and being a zombie has nothing to do with Ivan's flesh eating. Before he died four years ago, Ivan went nuts and turned into a cannibal." He let off another laugh, which was plainly bitter. "Welshscot always told me that he hated Ivan; not because of jealousy, but because he saw a monster in him. Now that Ivan thinks himself immortal, it's plain to see that he was right."

There was a small pause in which no one spoke or moved, and only the sound of Ivan's and Welshscot's fight could be heard. Sally took a deep breath...But before she spoke, Kelp took a step forwards. "I'll help him out," he stated. "That way, Hjalmar can follow your orders but know that Welshscot's safe."

It was hard to tell for a moment, but Lacy could have sworn that everyone, besides her and CJ, flashed an expression of disbelief. CJ looked around, wandering why a foul feeling was being directed at Kelp's offer.

Suddenly, Lacy sprang forwards and put an arm around Kelp, whilst saying excitedly, "Coolio, that's an awesome idea, Kelp! Better hurry up, though, before the fight ends." She then relinquished her arm and turned to CJ, saying brightly, "Okay, come with me and Nicole back to the Knotcorn. You need a rest after all you've been through." Under Lacy's wide smile, CJ nodded and began to follow her out. On the way, the flamingo turned to Kelp and asked, "Well? You'd better hurry up and get down there. You got a drunken man to save!"

CJ shook her head. "Welshaldy doesn't get drunk..."

"But he has to drink loads to get powers, doesn't he?"

While CJ began to explain to the flamingo, Kelp slipped past his boss and made his way to the hole in the back wall, where he would then continue his way to the lab below.

Speaking of that lab, Welshscot just got pushed against one of the grey vats, his face bearing bruises around his jaw. His foe, Ivan, (after punching Welshscot against the tank) then tried to grab the hybrid's ears so he could easily tear out the medic's throat. Before the blonde zombie could even try that notion, the hybrid managed to kick him away.

Laughing, Ivan quickly recovered and charged forwards once more, shouting crazily, "Come on, Welshscot, you should know better not to try and start a fight with the quarterback!"

"This isn't high school, Prick!" replied the hybrid; who accompanied his reply with a fierce uppercut that sent Ivan tumbling backwards. "You never got over the fact you weren't the star any more, never realised that people didn't give a shit about you." As Ivan tried to get back on his feet, Welshscot ran forwards and kicked the blonde in the face; his face slowly starting to lose its mask and being replaced with pure hate and loathing. "And when you did realise, you turned into a monster!"

Ivan laughed as he swiftly rolled over onto his back, his injured face slowly starting to heal from the hybrid's attack. "Wrong," he cackled. "I didn't turn into a monster, I've turned into you!" He then sprang to his feet, facing away from Welshscot; still cackling like a maniac. "I became what you are, a mutant and a freak! But now I've got real power, I'm immortal!"

Welshscot finally released his mask. Anger fumed out of him, anger that had been buried near the surface for two long. Gripping his fists, he roared at Ivan, yelling, "Don't you _dare_ say you're like me, you _fucking __**animal! **_Being a mutant, having power, doesn't make you a monster. It only helps to reveal a person's _true_ nature, depending on _how _they use it! You were _always_ a monster, Ivan. So…" Welshscot charged forward, his grey eyes ablaze with anger, "fucking _DIE_ _**AGAIN!**_"

The blonde didn't flinch as the hybrid continued to charge. "Geez, Welshscot..." Ivan, with his back turned to the angry medic, smirked. "...You really should calm down...and have a drink!" With lightning fast reflects, the blonde pulled out a green bottle from his clothes, spun on the spot and with deadly accuracy smashed the bottle into the side of Welshscot's head.

The effect was instantaneous. The hybrid, despite his towering fury, felt the glass and beverage brush and cut against his lips and instantly recognised the taste that was more than just his own blood. Due to the first, powerful blow, Welshscot flew to the side and crashed against the slab that CJ had been bound onto. His green scaled arm was the first to connect, but this resulted in pain since the medic's scales were slowly turning white and flaky. Also, as Welshscot tried to push himself up with his left arm, pain shot through his body and his vision began to slide in and out of focus. Then, the ginger suddenly began to cough, and what he coughed was blood.

Ivan slowly walked towards his wounded foe, taking his time to look at the shards of glass, partially the one that was labelled: London Gin. "Never knew you were allergic to English food," goaded the blonde zombie, as he slowly walked towards the wounded hybrid. "Nor that your body can't stand a single ounce of drugs, like cocaine." He then pulled a face and cried, in a fake tone of regret, "Oops, I shouldn't have put some in your drink; I hear it's a slow killer..." He laughed, his face twisted into a sadistic and evil grin.

He reached Welshscot and, even though the hybrid tried to resist, lifted the medic up, punched him in the gut and then threw him onto the slab. "Your mother should have told me earlier," taunted the blonde, as he grit his teeth, preparing to feast on the stunned ginger. "She also told me to spare you; she's got bigger plans for you. But I'm really hungry..." He licked his lips. "And hey, you'll see that slut again!" And with that, he spread out his teeth and brought his head down, right onto Welshscot's—

BANG!

Ivan's head shot forwards over the slab, the rest of his body following suit. He managed to roll onto the ground and spring back onto his feet, while the bullet in his head was being pushed out so the flesh could regenerate. His face livid, Ivan started at the entrance to the lab, where he saw a mobian tiger who was aiming an assault rifle at his face. "Who the hell are you!" roared the blonde zombie, angry that his feat had been denied.

With pure calmness, but with an annoyed face, the tiger pulled the trigger, whilst muttering, "None of your business." Ivan didn't have time to move as the gunfire started. His face received a volley of bullets, peppering his face until it was recognisable. He staggered back under the force of the assault, as the tiger continued to shoot at the blonde, now aiming for his chest. When he had reached the end of his magazine, the tiger quickly reloaded his weapon. Meanwhile, the zombie's skull was starting to leak and bleed bullets; and when they were all gone, his face grew back to its twisted and evil state.

"You can't kill me, you punk!" he screamed, his eyes bulging in his sockets. "I'm immortal!"

"You talk too much," was the tiger's reply, who promptly began to fire again. Though Ivan tried to avoid it this time, the mobian's aim was good and he was soon forcing away from the slab where Welshscot lay. As he reached the end of his magazine, stopped firing and rushed to the side of the slab. Once he reached it, he then reloaded, right before Ivan tried to charge him. Even though his riffle was ready, the tiger quickly dropped it, pulled out one of his revolvers and shot the zombie square between the eyes. Howling in pain, the blonde staggered back again; cursing the tiger with every breath that wasn't a scream of pain.

The next five minutes were just like this, with the tiger forcing the blonde zombie back until he eventually tripped over the Iron King's unconscious body. Nearing the end of his ammo and on his last weapon, a shotgun, Kelp looked down at Welshscot and said, "Hey, you, can you stand?" With the last of his strength, Welshscot coughed another batch of blood and rolled onto his side, pointing to his belt pouch that had been torn off. Kelp understood and made a dash for it, just as Ivan pushed himself off the Iron King's chest. As fast as he could, Kelp grabbed the pouch and flipped it open. But before Kelp could see anything to grab, he felt a sharp kick hit him in the back.

Deciding that Kelp was more of a meal than Welshscot, Ivan had run past the slab and attacked the tiger instead, causing the latter to fall onto the ground. As he fell to the floor, the pouch's contents flew out to, being a phone, a bottle of Scot Whiskey and a small fifty pence coin. Out of all of these, the fifty pence coin made the loudest sound when it hit the floor drawing everyone's eye towards it.

Ivan smirked when he saw the dull shine of the coin. "Well...what have we here..." He turned away from the tiger and strode towards it. Welshscot grey eyes widened in shock, as he witnessed Ivan move closer and closer...

_NO!_

Despite the pain that ravaged his body, despite the blood that was still dripping from his mouth, the hybrid forced himself off the slab and onto his feet. With his right, pale scaled arm useless, he griped his left fist and charged Ivan, who was just about to pick up the coin—

Welshscot, nor was Kelp, responsible for what happened next. For just as Ivan's finger tips were a fraction away from the coin, a knife flew from the lab's door and collided into the zombie's skull. Though it stunned him, the knife didn't send Ivan onto the ground. The white Wisp that had also shot from the door was responsible for that. It had flown right into the side of the zombie's skull, causing him to tumble to the ground.

As Welshscot and Kelp both stared at the floating creature, they both heard a familiar voice come from the lab's entrance. "Great job, Yacker, you showed that nasty man whose boss, didn't you?" Kelp rolled his eyes as he got to his feet, picking up his shotgun as he did so. Welshscot chuckled a little, but that stopped as the pain made him buckle. He would have fallen to the ground, if Hjalmar hadn't rushed to stop him from falling.

As he held Welshscot aloft, Hjalmar turned to Lacy, who had walked through the lab's door, and asked, "Can you throw me that bottle?" The flamingo complied and soon the bottle was flying through the air, which Hjalmar caught.

While the Norwegian tried to revive his friend, Ivan quickly got to his feet. "You bitch!" he screamed. "You and your pet will pay for that!" Kelp, seeing that Lacy was in danger, quickly aimed his shotgun...but for no real reason. When the zombie tried to charge at her, gnarling his teeth in fury, Lacy turned on the spot and punched him in the chest. As quick as a flash a portal opened on his chest, the force of anomaly sending Ivan staggering back.

"Ha," cried the zombie, who managed to retain his smirk. "If you were trying to punch my chest out, there's no point. I have no heart and any flesh I lose will regenerate."

Lacy poked her tongue at him. "No, dumbbell, I wasn't." And with that, she ducked down, revealing that Kelp had been standing behind her, and was now aiming at the portal in Ivan's chest. Without exchanging a word, Kelp fired at the portal; his shot flying right through it and out of the wall behind Ivan. The bullets hit Ivan in the back, surprising him and causing him to stumble forwards. And as a finisher, Lacy, while she was crouched, punched the floor in front of the stumbling Ivan; which he promptly fell through. But since Lacy quickly closed the portal, no one got to hear Ivan's screams as he fell from the underside of one of the tar pits cranes, which was positioned over one of the bubbly pits of black tar.

The flamingo straightened up, a wide smile on her beak. "Yay!" she cheered. "We did it, Yacker!" Kelp, who had lowered his shotgun, gave a small grunt. "Okay, and you too, Kelp." She then turned and gave Kelp a big hug, which caught him off guard. With his arms plastered to his side, Kelp tried to protest to his partner's hug, especially when the Wisp, Yacker, joined in.

As that scene happened over there, Hjalmar was putting the cork on the bottle of Whiskey, watching its magic at work. Though he still looked sick and pale, Welshscot's scales were slowly turning green again and a bit of strength allowed him to stand on his own legs. Coughing slightly, the hybrid gazed at his friend and muttered, "Thank you..."

He then turned and made his way to the fifty pence coin, focusing every last piece of strength he had left to collect his lost memento. As he bent down to retrieve it, Hjalmar walked up behind him and asked, quietly, "Is that...?"

The hybrid nodded, just as his fingers scooped up the little coin. As he held it in his scaled palm, a fond smile started to spread across his face. To Kelp and Lacy, who had stopped hugging/crushing the former's chest to watch, this scene creeped them out, that Welshscot was showing emotion, never mind smiling. But to Hjalmar, it was a refreshing and wonderful moment. For those precious moments, he saw his old friend, the true Welshscot.

But a dark cloud crossed the hybrid's mind, containing a vision of a mutilated body, a high piercing scream and a clear, disturbing vision of his mother's face, laughing at him. And then...

The medic took a deep breath and pocketed the coin, his face now blank and emotionless once more. Moving to collect his lost gear, the hybrid grunted a question to Hjalmar and Lacy. "Can you tell me what's happened with the FF?"

"The rest have returned to the Knotcorn," answered the Norwegian, who did his best to hide his disappointed sadness that the hybrid was back to his emotionless state. "Me, Sally and Rotor found the Wisps first. We text Bunnie to head to our location then sent a picture to Lacy, who opened up a portal to the garage. We got all the Wisps out, Lacy's even decided to keep one as a pet, as you can see."

"I've named him Yacker," stated the flamingo, who was gently rubbing the Wisp's head.

Kelp gave Lacy another bemused look. "Yacker? What kind of name is Yacker?"

"It's a great name!"

"Yeah and Mammoth Mogul's a saint."

"Is he?"

Hjalmar chuckled at the sight of Kelp face-palming himself. It was really weird seeing the tiger like this; he was not acting like he usually did, cold and unsociable. But for some reason, Lacy, though he had only known her for a day, was having an effect on him.

As Kelp lowered his hand from his face, he saw Welshscot standing straight ahead of him, his shoulder bag and belt pouch back in his possession. The hybrid, though it looked like it pained him, nodded his head and said, truthfully, "Thanks, Kelp, for saving me. I'd probably be lunch by now, if it weren't for you." The tiger was taken aback by this grateful gesture. He huffed and put his shotgun back in its holder, neither acknowledging nor dismissing the hybrid's thanks.

Seeing that he was making the tiger uncomfortable, he turned his eyes onto Lacy and asked, hoarsely, "By the way, where did you send that bastard?"

Shrugging, the bird replied calmly, "I ditched him in one of the tar pits that are near Lethal Highway."

Welshscot chuckled darkly, his face still retaining its stone features. "How ironic, that where I killed him all those years ago..." He then turned back to Hjalmar, as a very important question sprung to his lips. "Did you guy's find the Jewelled Sceptre?"

Before Hjalmar could answer, a low cough suddenly sounded from behind them. The Iron King had awoken, his body numb and swore like he had lost his invariability. Sensing the danger, Kelp, Lacy, Hjalmar and Welshscot all hurried over to the Iron King, as he moved slightly on his bed of glass. He didn't try to move, like he had accepted defeat, but Kelp still pulled out his shotgun and aimed it at the stunned ox's head.

Since Welshscot's voice was weak, Hjalmar was the one who asked: "Iron King, where's the Jewelled Sceptre?"

The weak ox wheezed and spluttered. "F-fuck you..."

Kelp shook his head. "Wrong answer." He then aimed his shotgun at the ox's left knee and fired. Incredibly, the shot managed to pierce the Iron King's skin, resulting in a loud bellow of pain. Kelp then moved his aim to the other knee, saying darkly, "Now, answer his question or I'll shoot your knee and then your balls."

The Iron King was still groaning in pain, trying to stop his wounded knee from bleeding. "Fine, you miserable welt, but only because that damned dragon bitch's curse was real." Welshscot's eyes sharpened at those last words, which hinted directly at his mother. "Darken and Marsali, that bitch, asked if they could borrow it since they gave it to me in the first place and brought me a way to screw you over." Welshscot noted that he said 'me' and not us, which just confirmed that the Iron Couple's marriage was false. "But as I gave it to her, she told me that 'my greatest strength will fail me when the time comes'."

Hjalmar softly cursed inside his mind. _If Darken and Marsali have gotten their hands on something that _powerful_..._

As the forensic thought those words, Welshscot suddenly rasped, "Where's Marsali?"

The Iron King snorted. "How the hell should I know? I don't take interest—" He quickly changed his tune, as Kelp flexed his trigger finger. "I honestly don't know, she never told me anything, nor Darken or there other friend!"

The Hybrid's ears twitched at that last sentence. "What do you mean, there other friend?" The Iron King didn't say anything. "Tell me," barked the medic in a croaky voice. "Who is this other friend?"

But the Iron King's eyes just widened until his eyelids disappeared, as if he was going into a deep sleep. His head hung backwards and a few words escaped his motionless lips; "They're here..." The four people surrounding the fallen ox had no idea what he had meant, until Welshscot looked up above the Iron King.

Shadows were gathering onto the ceiling, from the vats, the pieces of machinery; all the shadows that had a lifeless owner were being sucked onto the ceiling. Lacy was the first to notice, and first to scream at that shadows, which did not belong to anything in this room, was slowly crawling along the floor from either side of them. Seeing the danger, Kelp, Lacy, Hjalmar and Welshscot turned and ran for the lab's exit. They managed to avoid the shadows and reached the door, but they stopped when they heard the Iron King scream.

Turning back, the four heroes saw that shadowy tentacles had spouted from the shadows. With two of them around his torso, the Iron King continued to scream as they began to force him upwards. With bone breaking force, the tentacles pushed the ox through the lab's ceiling and, even though the other couldn't see it, all the way upwards until he shot through the floor of the Iron Domain brothel and then the roof. Though he was dazed and almost dead from the recent blows, the Iron King managed to catch a glimpse of police, robots and reporters who were gathering round his Domain. But he was soon dragged down through the hole he had made and found himself back in the main lab.

Just as Welshscot and the other were about to run, they saw something that was even worse than what they saw now. With the walls almost completely covered in shadows, one of the darkened walls began to suddenly spout a column of ash, which soon turned into a pillar of black flames. The pillar parted, slowly, and the tentacles began to lift the Iron King towards it, while he struggled and screamed. And when the pillars finished parting, a set of burning, magma eyes loomed out of the darkness. Then the eyes moved outwards, followed by sight that could have stop the bravest man's heart. Its skin was like a sea of molten lava, except its colour was of dark shadows. From its fore head shot a set of sharp, flaming spikes that looked so sharp it could slice through light itself. But all in all, the face itself was the most terrifying of all. No matter how hard you could try to look in the mortal world, you would never find a face that shone pure fear, pure anger or even purer evil.

The Iron King didn't even try to scream, as the tentacles lifted him closer and closer to the face's mouth. And when it opened to consume the broken ox, you could hear the screams, the cries and the suffering of the damned; of the darkest plains of the Cage of Hell.

Though Kelp, Lacy and Hjalmar had expressions that well suited the situation (of fear, dread and despair), Welshscot had the worst expressions of them all: recognition. Shaking with the greatest amount of fear he had ever felt, the hybrid turned to his comrades and screamed, "RUN, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, RUN!"

And with that, they did. But as Welshscot was about to leave, he looked back at the face, which had by now consumed the body and soul of the Iron King. And its eyes stared back, right into Welshscot's grey ones. Soon, he began to run, with tendrils of darkness on his tail.

As he pounded through the corridors of the secret lab, sweat tricking down his body and his scaled arm, he heard the sounds of the shadows as they chased him, to collect his soul. He skidded round a corner to find a dead end, or more pacifically, a dead end where his friends were gathered. Reaching them, he found that Lacy was constantly punching the corridor's end wall, causing ripples in time and space to appear but no portal.

"For crying out loud!" moaned Lacy, as she continued to batter the wall. "Something is blocking me; I can't break the reality wall!"

Kelp turned round to see Welshscot arrive, and also to see a wave of shadows and tentacles in the distance behind the medic. Breathing heavily, the tiger shouted, in desperation, "Argus, please save us from this abomination!"

Welshscot then suddenly froze, his body as still as the grave. As Hjalmar stared at his friend, he realised what was going on. _Crap, _thought the Norwegian. _I hope Welshscot's body can handle this..._

As the shadows neared ever closer, the medic slowly turned around to face their approach. His grey eyes had spun backwards into his skull and his mouth was hanging open. Suddenly, water began to dribble from the ginger's mouth; slowly, at first, but then it turned into a torrent. And along with his mouth, water began to surge out from his eye sockets and every pore in his skin, until the hybrid was drenched and sodden.

The water that had secreted from his body now clung to the corridor's floor, giving off a faint light that twinkled like starlight. Then, as the shadows and the tendrils met the sea of water, tentacles shot out of the water; fleshy, octopus like tentacles that were now slicing against the hordes of shadow and darkness.

Kelp watched helplessly as he saw the water and the shadows fight, his eyes focusing more on the hybrid, who was still standing still and releasing vast amounts of water that was inhumanly possible. Even though his mind screamed for answers, the tiger bit back his curiosity and just hoped that Welshscot would continue whatever he was doing.

As the tentacles of shadow and the tentacles of water continued to fight, Lacy was pounding away at the wall; desperately trying to break through. After a particularly violent strike, which ended in failure, the flamingo let off an angry cry of exasperation. She threw her head backwards and shouted at the ceiling, "WELSHSCOT, STOP BEING A CLIFF HANGER ADDICT AND LET ME BREAK THROUGH THIS DAMNED WALL!"

Of course, any _normal _person had to question Lacy's logic, because she was shouting at a person that _wasn't_ there.

Kelp turned to her, his eyes wide with disbelief. "How can you blame him! He's..." The tiger turned back to the medic, who was still spouting copious amounts of water. "...I don't know what he's doing, but how is he to blame?"

"Not that Welshscot... ah, never mind." She turned back to the wall and began pounding it once more. "Come—on," she panted, as she delivered each blow. "I'm—not—letting—these—guys—die—because—of—some—lousy—late—writer!"

Kelp simply shrugged, not understanding exactly what Lacy was getting at.

And finally, after drawing back her fist for the last time, Lacy managed to puncture a hole in reality, which led to the great hall of the Knotcorn Garage. "Finally," she cried. Turning to Kelp, Lacy grabbed his arm and pulled him through the portal; Yacker, who had been flying by the bird's head for all this time, floating after them.

Just as Kelp's shoe past through the portal, the water stopped flooding out of Welshscot and his eyes soon returned to their usual grey state. Weakened by the strange phenomenon, the medic fell backwards, his body limp and frail. Hjalmar caught the hybrid under his armpits and began to drag him towards the portal. Meanwhile, the shadows managed to break through the line of water, which as starting to evaporate into thin air. The tentacles, with deadly yet silent speed, rushed forwards, determined to wrap itself around Welshscot's legs. But just as the shadows reached the portals edge, the portal closed; earning an unearthly roar that echoed around the Iron Domain.

What happened next was never discovered, but the results where clear, them being the ruin of the Iron Domain. Most say it was an explosion, some say that the foundation sank, but the Freedom Fighter's guess was that it had been torn apart by the mysterious shadows that looked like they had come from the deepest parts of Hell.


	26. Two Nocturnal Knights Part I

**domi|note**

**Warning:-** you know that stuff that normally accompanies TD's chapters? Plus attempted rape. Don't complain to me, there was a warning in the first chapter.

Dau Marchogion Stelcio = Two Nocturnal Knights

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Death is only the beginning… ~The Mummy<br>_…_  
><em>**Anthem of Our Dying Day**_  
><em>._  
>Chapter Twenty Six<br>_._  
><em>"If you were here I'd never have a fear. So go on live your life. But I miss you more than I did yesterday."  
><em>...<br>Give 'Em Hell Kid _by My Chemical Romance

* * *

><p>D a u . M a r c h o g i o n . S t e l c i o . <em>P a r t . O n e<em>

They called the district 'City Escape'. The reason why is because, compared to shit holes like the N-Zone and the Black Hill district, it looked like a slice of Hollywood, a completely different planet even. Part of the four districts that made up the 'Egg Empire', where MeteoTech were most dominant and noticeable on the streets, City Escape was the home of stars and paparazzi. Placed right in-between the Casino Nights Plaza, the Kingdom of Vice that was joint-ruled by the Iron Domain and Mammoth Mogul's Gambling Syndicate, and the Mobotropolis suburbs, City Escape's neon lights, shiny and clean(ish) skyscrapers were where the rich and famous came to show off on television and film.

But despite its grand buildings and upper class citizens, who were walking home in the dark light of the new night, the filth of bigotry was still freshly laid across the alleyways and side streets. Right at this moment, in a bypass near the City's News Station where Adam Mecha broadcasted his, and many other shows across the whole of Soleanna, six men, all gruff-faced, wearing security guard outfits with bulking figures, were stomping on the back of a red feathered, Mobian eagle.

While the guards, who worked at the News Station, continued to stamp on their prey, another guard, a bald-headed Hispanic, was pressing a female Eagle against the cold, brick wall, a cruel, lustful gleam in his eyes as he watched the red-feathered Mobian squirm and struggle.

After landing one final blow upon the male Eagle's spine, the other guards started to hoard around the helpless woman. The same, evil idea stuck in their heads. "Looks like..." said the Hispanic, who was smiling eerily at the petrified bird, "...you mutants are good for something after all!" He then let off a cackled of mirth, which was echoed around the guards like the cruel, diabolical thought that they were going to put into action.

Behind them, barely conscious and bleeding, the male eagle pushed himself to his knees, clutching his broken ribs. Through one puffy black eye, he saw the Hispanic guard slowly reach for his sister's dress, while she began to beg for mercy she knew would never come. _No, _thought the Mobian, as the Hispanic's finger tips got closer and closer to his sister. _I won't... let you... HARM HER!_

And with the last of his strength, the last bit of his will, he pushed off the ground with his broken leg, the pain as sharp as glass. But he kept on going, raising his bruised fist which looked like a withered tree stump. Just as his sister gave one last scream of terror, the Hispanic now gripping her dress, he charged into the group of guards, yelling, "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SISTER!" The Hispanic, having being totally lost in his sick fantasy, yelped in surprise as the male Eagle's fist slammed into the back of his skull.

He lost his grip on the female Mobian, who just stood stock still, her terror still rooting her to the spot. The brother, seeing that his sister was too afraid to move, decided to use the curse that had brought these bigots down upon him. It was funny that he had always moaned that his power stunk, that teleporting was supposed to teleport the person and not the object they were touching. But now it was something wonderful, something brilliant and something that would at least save his sister.

Before she knew what was happening, she felt a set of feathered hands grab her shoulders. And as she began to feel her body vibrate, her eyes made out the sight of her brother's blood-strewn face. The last thing she remembered, before appearing in the familiar living room where she and her brother had argued over the stupid things, was her brother's last smile as he whispered, "Tell dad he was right. I'm more than just a freak..."

The female Eagle's scream of, "Tori!" never reached his ears as she vanished into thin air, but a fist did reach that same spot, sending Tori flying to the ground. And though the guards, angry of being cheated from their sick intentions, stomped on Tori's beak, the Eagle still smiled. And as they began to fracture the bones that are already broken, the boy still smiled. And even after they had finally snapped his neck, when the Hispanic had driven his heel into the Eagle's gullet, Tori's smile continued to play across his lifeless face. For he knew, thanks to the power he had considered a curse, that his sister was safe and now, as his soul joined the ranks of the Loa, he would be able to guide his family by the side of the great Argus. In his life, he had achieved little, but in his death, Tori had achieved more.

* * *

><p><em>I live... in the weak... and the wounded...<em>~Session 9

* * *

><p>"Filthy mutant scum-bag. I can't believe it had the nerve to touch me. I was going to wash my hands of his tainted blood afterwards, but now I need a shower!" As the seven guards walked lazily through the back door of Adam Mecha's News station, six of them began to laugh at the comment of their Hispanic friend.<p>

The News Station was basically a twenty-story high skyscraper, whose only difference to any other sky scraper was the huge neon sign that read: 'Mecha's Station'. On the inside, the floors were all divided into different sectors concentrated on each part of the media. For example, the newspaper printers and the journalist's offices took up the four bottom floors of the building, the movie writers and contractors had the entire middle section while TV, news and cartoon, had the entire top to themselves. There were floors that weren't used or visited, but to work in this place you had one golden rule: Don't stick your nose out, or it'll get blown off.

The seven guards were okay with that, just as long as they got paid. At the moment, as they walked through reception and up to an elevator, six of the guards were too busy taking the piss out of their Hispanic friend. "Still can't believe you let that bitch get away. If I had been the one keep an eye on her, we'd be slapping that ass right now."

"Naw, you'd just keep that cunt for yourself," replied one of the guards, a blonde, long-haired and small-eyed man.

The guy he had replied to, a man with similar eyes but grass-length hair, shrugged, "True that, but at least I don't go running to the Iron Domain if I wanna quick shag, unlike some bastard I know!"

A taller, dark-skinned man growled at the comment, just as he pressed the down button for the elevator. "Go get yerself stuffed. At least I can afford it. I don't go blowing my pay over at Mogul's Casinos."

The grassy-haired man waved his hand, unconcernedly, "Whatever, at least I won't go bow legged one day. Who knows how many diseases you've got already?"

Just as the elevator door came sliding down into view, another one of the guards, dough-faced and Asian, piped up, "Well it beats being in debt to Mammoth Mogul. I hear that mutant freak likes to drown people who don't pay on time in an acid tank he keeps in his office."

The grassy haired man turned sharply, a trace of fear in his eyes. "You serious?" he asked, hurriedly.

It was the guy behind him who answered, a spotty-faced and high-cheek-boned German, who said, grimily, "Ja, I knew a guy who got done by Mogul. Saw him get taken from his home by the casino bouncers, and then saw his bones being thrown against his wife's door from a black bucket. It took me a fortnight to paint over the places the acid dripped on." The guards then moved into the open elevator, except for one (a shallow-faced Yank) who said he needed to visit a reporter 'friend' before heading up to guard Mecha's show.

As the elevator began to slowly ascend, the guards idly examined the overly-expensive carpets that lined the walls, floor and ceiling of the cabled box. And though most of them were exchanging words and gossip, the Hispanic guard, who was still fuming about the prior incident, remained silent. While rubbing the sore spot where the mutant freak had hit him, he absentmindedly watched the mounted screen on the elevator wall, which was showing a news report that was broadcasting right above them.

Adam Mecha, a greasy git in the Hispanic's opinion, was sitting behind his red-polished oak desk, wearing that patronising expression that looked like it had been carved there as an afterthought. Wearing a cliché black/red suit and tie, with his short, spiky brown hair done up so he looked even more like a douche, Adam was just finishing the eleven o'clock news.

"...And in other news, scientists have reported that two prototype devices, called the 'Sound Dampener Field' and the 'Delirium Nanites', were stolen nearly two hours ago. The police currently have no suspects..." The Hispanic soon lost interest and instead decided to waste his time rubbing his own bald head. The only thing that the Hispanic liked about working for Mecha was the pay and that all his programs were aimed against mutants, showing them as bad guys in cartoons and soaps and hosting game shows were mutants were forced to compete in humiliating games. Besides that, the guard hated the stuck up TV presenter from his stuck up voice to his lame-ass face.

The Hispanic decided to listen in on his friend's conversations, just as the German guard muttered, "I think its bullshit. The Jacaranda Slaughter wasn't caused by the Tails Doll, he's just a myth."

The Asian man nodded in agreement. "Yeah, all we got for evidence is a tape recorder. Even if he was real, why would he leave something that would make people know it was him? But seriously, an un-dead guy who kills to protect mutants? That's just some fairy tale some mutant came up with to scare people."

The grassy-haired man, who was shifting around uncomfortably, mumbled, "I don't know...Metal Knuckles and Metal Sonic are real enough..."

The German rolled his eyes. "Sure they are, people have _seen _them. But just because they're real, doesn't mean the Tails Doll is. How can a person who lost his hands and a killer cyborg be related to some zombie legend?"

The grassy-haired man nodded, but still didn't look convinced. The blonde guard, on the other hand, was quick to respond to the German's last remark. "They say that MK, MS and TD were once part of the Metalix Guard, the Duke of Soleanna's personal guard squad. Rumours say that MS killed TD when the massacre went down and MK beat MS to a pulp because he killed TD. He got his hands ripped off by Eggman's robots afterwards, that why people call him Metal Knuckles, and MS got turned into the killing machine he is today, who resembles that punk Sonic, who lead the pussy group; Freedom Fighters, for a little while."

The German raised an eye brow, "And the Tails Doll somehow managed to return from the dead." The blonde nodded, confidently. "That is just crap," sneered the German guard. "If that's true, why isn't there another zombie or bionic psycho out there? I thought there were four people in the Metalix guard."

Before anyone could argue, the dark-skinned guard, who had enough of all the pointless bickering, shouted, "Oh, what does it matter? I didn't see any saviour stopping us from putting that eagle freak into the ground!"

They all laughed, and just as their cackling subsided, the elevator grinded to a halt and the doors opened up to reveal the top floor. Lined with red carpets and wooden walls, this side corridor held three doors. The one on the left lead to the long, spiralling staircase, the right lead to both a male and female restroom and at the very end of the corridor there was a double door that leads to Adam Mecha's personal broadcasting studio.

The guards strolled out of the elevator with no real urgency. Their shift didn't start for another ten minutes, not until the start of Adam's personal chat show. He was interviewing some rich noble or something like that, so the guards took their time as they walked down the red-lined corridor. The Hispanic, who hadn't been kidding about washing his hands, told his entourage that he needed to wash up and turned right into the door for the restroom.

He found himself in a small, white tilled room that had two doors, one with a bracket saying 'Male' while the other said 'Female'. He obviously went through male, opening the whitewash door with no real enthusiasm.

All the Hispanic could think off, as he slowly strolled into the restroom, was of the stupid mutant freak he had just put down. How dare it raise a hand towards its superiors, how dare it try to save the worthless whore, when he had planned so many things for the girl? Why couldn't mutants just accept the fact that they were just freaks of nature that only deserved to be put down? They didn't belong in this world or in positions of power. Doesn't Mammoth Mogul prove that they only crave for the destruction and torture of others for their own pleasure?

He remembered what one of the other guards had said; _'I didn't see any saviour stop us from putting that eagle freak into the ground!' _Ha, that's right. And who would? No one would lift a finger to save a mutant, especially not the—

The Hispanic, who was just about to push open a cubical, gasped. His hand slipped down the cheap plastic surface of the door as his eyes widened in shock. It wasn't because the man in front of him, who was washing his hands at the sink, was the shallow-faced American who had ditched them on the bottom floor. He was more surprised that the Yank's dwarfish physique, the reflection the Hispanic saw in the mirror was taller and broader. He was stunned to see a tatty, burnt trench coat instead of the uniform the Yank was wearing. But he became fearful when he saw a burnt fox mask, held together by black, rotting stitches and topped with a jewel-top antenna, its gem glowing an eerie shade or red.

The Hispanic began to shake, unable to contain the fear that was slowly coursing through him like poison. The Yank, seeing his friend's distress in the mirror, turned round, causing his altered reflection to follow suit. "Hey, what's the matter?" he tilted his head onto its side, which was perfectly copied by the trench coated reflection.

The Hispanic man couldn't speak; his teeth were glued together by the terror he felt. Slowly, while trembling still, the guard raised his hand and pointed a shaking finger at the Yank's reflection in the mirror. Confused, the American followed the direction of the finger until he was staring straight into the black, emotionless buttons that served as the eyes of the Tails Doll. The Yank raised an eye brow, which was the only movement not copied by the reflection.

He turned back to his scared friend, asking in a stumped tone, "I don't get it, what wrong with my reflection?" the Yank then scowled, grinding his teeth angrily. "Oh, I get it! This is just some crack at my looks, isn't it? Well look here, asshole, you look like a piece of crap compared to me, so don't go around insulting other people!" When the Hispanic didn't drop the look of fear on his face, the Yank asked again, "What the hell is it? Joke's over, so quit the act already!"

The Hispanic shook his head again and, since his teeth had decided to thaw, managed to stutter, "Y-you're r-reflection..."

The Yank turned round again, staring once more into the black-buttoned mask of the Tails Doll with only confusion in his eyes. He even raised a hand to his head, ruffled his mop of brown hair, causing the reflection to press its gloved hand against its antenna, which began to sway left and right in the still air. Turning round, his face now full of concern, the Yank asked slowly, "Are you feeling alright, mate?"

The Hispanic, who was still gazing into the mirror where the Yank's reflection was being distorted into the image of the 'Sunshine' killer, gulped and rambled, "N-no... I' m must be tired or something..." Without another word, the Hispanic tore his eyes away from the mirror and stumbled into the cubical, fumbling at the catch as he locked the door shut.

As he did his business, the bald guard pondered about the sight he had just seen. How could his friend fail to notice that his reflection was not his own, that what had been reflected in the glass was the exact description of the fabled Tails Doll? How could the American just shrug off that his own reflection had been morphed into the image of a creature that was infamous for taking the lives of those who have killed mutants...? Or was he really just tired, or ill? He shook his head, as reason stared to return like a wave of warmth. The Tails Doll didn't exist; he was just an urban legend. No one in their right mind would help a mutant; it was all just in his head.

With that safely in his mind, the Hispanic soon exited the cubical, closed the door and headed straight for the sink. But any attempts to put the strange sight of the Tails Doll out of his head completely were dashed. For the Yank was still in the restroom, drying his hands in the hand dryer closest to the sinks, and in the mirror, rubbing his gloved hands together just like the Yank, was the trench coated killer.

Taking a deep, calming breath, the Hispanic guard averted his eyes from the figment of his imagination and began to wash his hands. He steadily grabbed the tap and turned it to unleash a stream of hot water. He wasted no time in bathing his hands in the gush of water, while his ears still caught the sucking sound of the hand dryer. The Hispanic tried to distract himself by humming a tune, but all he could think of was 'Can you feel the sunshine'? And how long does it take to dry a person's hands, he must have finished by now? Why was the stupid Yank taking so long?

The Hispanic turned his head, thinking of what he could say to the—

It's a strange thing, a scream. No matter who or what you were, this mechanism which was trigged when you're hurt or scared would always happen, a natural attempt to try and draw friends to help you, support you from the thing that has harmed or scared you. But like so many things that we disregard until it is too late, sometimes it is foiled by the smallest of things. Take for instance the restroom's walls, as its tilled surfaces reflect the Hispanic's screams back and forth inside the room. Note the thickness of the walls and door, which manage to absorb the fragments of sound that manages to escape the endless loop of the echo. For because of all those little details, no one knew that some has died tonight... or if there may be another to join him soon?

For the reason why the hand dryer was still on was because the American's head was resting on the button, his brown hair mattered with fresh, sticky blood. The exact source of the blood was very hard to tell. Was it the thin puncture wound that ran through his chest? The slash and cuts that lined every inch of his torn skin and clothing? Or had the blood come from the American's mouth and nose due to damaged tissue caused by the American's neck, being spun round like a top? In fact, the American's head had been spun completely around, 180 degrees, which caused the victim's sightless eyes to stare at the Hispanic man.

It was all too much for the Hispanic guard. Nausia was threatening to overwhelm him and cold sweat was dripping from his bald scalp like melting snow drops. If it wasn't for the fact he hadn't eaten for awhile, the man would be puking all over the floor, which was already swamped in fresh blood. Even if he wanted to puke, his mouth was already sore from all of his screaming. The Hispanic guard couldn't move yet, his legs having been turned to leave at the pure shock of his friend's violent murder. The moment he had the strength to do so, the guard would run from the restroom, screaming for someone to save him from this awful nightmare.

But before his legs could comply with his desperate desire, the Hispanic's eyes, which were already gleaming with fear, managed to spy a single, missing detail. Everything was as it should be at a murder scene, the body was savaged beyond repair, the blood was already starting to dry and the victim's reflection showed every speck of gore that was tangled in the victim's hair... and that was why the Hispanic had been raised to new level of terror. The American's reflection was back to normal... but where did the distorted one go, where was... the Tails Doll?

A single thought floated into the Hispanic's mind, a thought which filled him with unparalleled dread. Slowly, taking all the time he could waste, he turned towards the mirror... and his thoughts became a reality. He couldn't gasp, he could scream, he couldn't say anything. It was like his own mouth was laced shut, as if the black thread that was sewed into the fox mask in the reflection before him was doing the same for his own mouth.

The Hispanic's petrified eyes gazed directly into the black set of buttons that served as the Tails Doll's eyes. This reflection that could not possibly exist was copying every single clamour, the slightest fidget of a finger and the rising motion of the Hispanic's chest. Still not convinced, the bald man began to slowly raise a trembling hand in the air and waved at the reflection. To his dismay, the Tails Doll copied him from the moment the elbow began to bend to the left and then sway to the right.

The Hispanic guard had never felt so helpless. What he had believed to be a figment of his imagination, until he saw his friend in a pool of blood, now seemed to be an omen of his death. And he felt like a child before a beating, seeing the look in the parent's eyes, knowing what was coming, but unable to tell when their fate would be executed. As he stood there, gazing into the mirror that held the image of the Tails Doll, he tried to clear his mind of fear, to try and do something to save himself. And, through a small gap in his mind that wasn't clouded by horror, a simple idea burst into action.

Drawing up the little strength he had left, the Hispanic closed his eyes and threw his raised fist, straight at the burnt mask in the mirror. His desperate act of panic was only rewarded with pain, as blood started to ooze and drip through the cracked glass. And still the Tails Doll continued to stare with his buttoned eyes, his masked face segmented by the cracks caused by the Hispanic's pointless attack.

Now clutching his bleeding knuckles to his chest, the bald man finally gathered the strength to move, though fear still stroked its cold, clammy fingers down both his legs. Taking one step back at a time, he continued to stare at the cracked mirror. He knew that to escape this nightmare, he needed to pull his eyes away from the torment this mirror was bringing. Even now, the image of the Tails Doll was still copying his every move, only stopping when the Hispanic halted before the open cubical door...

...Wait... Open...?

The Hispanic's eyes didn't even get a chance to widen, as he was violently pulled into the cubical. The door, in the blink of an eye, slammed shut. The lock, as quietly as a mouse, clicked. But the scream, which had occurred before, never came...

Silence. That was all that was left in the restroom, complete and utter silence. The dryer had long since stopped, its roars having faded into nothingness, for the American's dead head was no longer pressed against its button. Even the blood that had been smeared across the small machine and the restroom floor had vanished... but it wouldn't be missed.

For at that moment, though silence was still present in the checker-tiled room, blood was beginning to rush from under the cubical door, like a miniature tsunami. Blood, fresh, red, sticky blood was also beginning to splatter the wall of the cubical and the ceiling above it. Yet not a single sound, not a splatter or a splash, could be heard. It was like a mute button had been pressed; stopping all sound, even the most important one of all: the sound of terrified screaming.

But after awhile, when the blood stopped flowing, sound slowly started to return. It wasn't much, only a steady dripping sound that was coming from inside the cubical. What is it you ask? Well you're in luck...

The cubical door's lock suddenly clicked and, with a tauntingly slow pace, the door itself swung open to reveal... nobody. Not the Tails Doll, the Hispanic guard or anyone else for that matter. All there was to see was a blood-stained toilet, covered completely with runny red liquid. The toilet's seat was open, and judging by the fact that there was still a messy mush of tanned flesh, shredded uniform and various other organs, all swimming in a mixture of blood, gore and sewage that someone has forgotten to flush...

Pity... It might have saved all this mess...

* * *

><p><em>I just can't take no pleasure in killing. There's just some things you gotta do. Don't mean you have to like it... <em>-Texas Chainsaw Massacre

* * *

><p>Adam Mecha wasn't pleased. Though his face showed no stress, in fact a small, content smile was starting to curl at the corner of his mouth, the TV presenter was infuriated. He was sitting in his red leather seat, behind his polished oak desk that was placed before a fake, starry night backdrop, which was branded with pearl white letters spelling 'Mecha's Show'.<p>

From where he sat, from the back of the broadcasting stage, he could see the two sofas that were placed on both sides of the stage and the three men who acted as the camera crew (who were currently standing around the main camera, which is deactivated until the start of Adam's program.) As well as that, he could easily make out the booth that served as the sound booth and broadcasting station for this floor.

Everything was as it should be, except for one -no two- missing details. Out of the corner of a brown and rather wooden eye, he discreetly began to clock all the guards. One above him on the walkway to observe for any suspicious activity, two in each of the exiting wings of the stage (who all arrived together) and one covering each of the following: the main exit, the hidden exit that was hidden in the wall closest to the right side of the stage and finally the sound booth, counting up for a total of eight guards.

_This is wrong, _thought Adam, who glanced at his watch as something to do to suppress his annoyance. _The time is 11:09. All guards should be in position and accounted for. The program will start in fifty eight seconds, and the site is not secure. _

One thing Adam could say about himself was that he never liked it when something went wrong, even if it was a little mistake. Thought the chances are low that something might occur, which might not be dealt with due to the decreased in the amount of guards, the TV presenter was already cautious.

Ever since the massacre at the Violet Manor, Eggman had cut off all kinds of communications, said for one, with all the people he had used to plan, attack and cover up the incident at the graveyard. Adam knew all their names and since Lume, who had been charged with buying the demolished graveyard, might have been interrogated by the... 'Tails Doll', the TV presenter knew that he himself was the weakest link. Lume had seen his face when Eggman first brought her into the conspiracy and there was a chance, a very high chance that this 'Tails Doll' knew about him. Though he highly doubted that one man would be a problem, since all this garbage that Omochao was spouting about an 'undead killer', just because of a measly tape that could have been left by anyone, was just garbage, Adam was still a person who never felt safe unless all the variables were analyzed and documented.

With not even a single, solid fact about whoever was behind the Jacaranda Slaughter, the clear possibility that he had become a liability due to Lume's death and the sudden loss of his only way to communicate with Eggman (which had occurred many hours ago), Adam was more than 'on edge'. Plus with all the new reports of the attack on Whiskers' warehouse and the incident at the Iron Domain, which Adam was trying to suppress from the public while being hounded by General Tabby and that blasted Omochao and her brother, Chocola Chao, the stress was starting too—

11:10...

Adam looked up from his watch, his face now beaming with a smile so fake it looked like it had been taken from a cheap action figure and stuck onto his own face with glue. _This isn't the time to worry, _thought the TV presenter, as he watched his staff move into their final position, literally watching the brown, bowl cut cameraman gripping the mounted camera firmly. _It's time to start the show..._

And with that, as the director made the final gesture, the camera's live button started to flash red, and thus began the end...

"Hello, ladies and gentlemen," Adam greeted, with an overly friendly tone that didn't suit the real him, but went along well with his fake expression. "Welcome to the Mecha Show! I'm your host, Adam Mecha, and tonight I'll be talking to a new face, still a politician though, so not much of a difference really..." The fake audience's laughter immediately sounded, right on time. After he waited five seconds, exactly like clockwork, he continued to talk again, with the same fake quality in his voice that managed to fool all the simple-minded humans and Mobians watching.

"This guy ain't exactly young and he has a bit of problem speaking, but don't let that fool ya. He's sent more criminals and freaks to jail than you've had hot dinners." Though the fake audience's laughter was quite loud, Adam could still hear the chortles of the guards and camera crew, who all had one thing in common, the hatred of mutants.

This was his real job. Behind the talk shows, the news reports and the reading material that he controlled and orchestrated, Adam weaved Eggman's ideals through each word he said and printed. From cartoons for babies to documentaries for the educated, he discreetly laid the foundations to every anti-mutant thought in Soleanna. It was his true purpose, the reason why he existed...

When the manufactured laughed finally died down, Mecha turned his head to the left wing entrance. He then raised his hand, in a rehearsed way, and introduced, "Everyone give a big hand... to High Judge, Eggman Nega, cousin of the great Eggman himself!"

As the fake applause of an audience that wasn't really there began to fool the viewers of Mecha's show, a tall, fat man walked on stage from stage left, exactly as planned. Wearing his black judge cloak that was embodied with the Royal Court's crest, Nega strolled around the sofa and sat down, his greying moustache, black sun-glassed eyes and balding scalp in full view of all the watchers at home.

Nega, despite being Eggman's cousin, was the only face that reminded people of the real Eggman before he went into hiding. But unlike his elusive cousin, the high judge had a hidden red and black plate on his throat that covered a device that allowed himself to use his tarnished vocal chords.

Years ago, in the days of those damned Metalix guards, Nega had been involved with a case concerning a mutant who had been framed for a murder. How Nega knew was because he had framed the freak himself, for personal matters. When he was about to pass a guilty verdict, despite all the evidence that damned woman had collected (who hadn't been a lawyer in the first place), he drunk from his glass of water, which really turned out to be carbonic acid.

The culprit was never found, but Nega always suspected that the Metalix had been behind it, and that damned medic, Owen Scottmen. That was also the trial that introduced the two Judge's system, where Nega was forced to make co-decisions with not only the jury, but another high judge, Max of the House of Acorn. Max dropped the charges against the mutant and, to stop Nega from passing any more bias verdicts, made sure that all convictions were fair from looking at the evidence and a judgement had to be agreed on by both judges.

Of course, no one but Nega, Eggman and Adam knew that the mutant had been set up. That was just an event that made prosecuting mutants by law harder. But as long as Adam controlled what the people saw, that incident was a minor setback.

Back to the show, Adam was still playing his role to the letter. The moment the applause died down, he began the rehearsed conversation. "Thank you, Egg Nega; it's an honour having you on my show tonight."

Nega didn't even bother to hide the fact he didn't want to be here. He scowled as his automated voice chimed, "Yes, what better way to waste my time than answering your stupid questions."

Adam wasn't fazed one bit by the comment; its only purpose was to satisfy the more dry humoured viewers, so he ploughed on, his personality mask still firmly in place. "Judge Nega, just to satisfy the rumour mill, what do you have to say about the accident at the cemetery last week?"

Nega scoffed, his wrinkled face full of disbelief. "Accident? I don't believe it was an accident."

On the outside, Adam looked intrigued at the old judge's remark. On the inside, he was smiling, evilly. One of the most powerful weapons that Adam had at his disposable was rumours. Though it was a double-edged sword, since rumours of truth could prove disastrous, a rumour of a lie could sway the most respectable person... or mutant.

After asking what the judge meant, Nega scoffed again, a horrible noise that could make anyone shiver with disgust. "Egg Robots don't get from a factory to a graveyard, which is owned by the Church of Solaris, and tear it to pieces by accident. It's obvious that the devil worshipers, from the Cult of Argus, had a hand in this diabolical act. If the Head Priest, Welshald Scottmen, is anything like his heretic mother, Marsali the Dragon-Scottmen, then it wouldn't surprise me, what could you expect from a half-mutant?" he laughed a hoarsely, a sound that could be heard clearly through the noise of fake mirth and applause.

Adam, who had laughed as well (a laugh which had touched the surface of his true nature), nodded while saying, "That could certainly be the case. The police should take that into consideration. Maybe the Police Chief, Geoffrey St John, is taking Welshald into custody right now. If so, then you'll be passing sentence on that criminal by the end of the week, Nega, eh?"

"We can only hope, Mr Mecha," replied Nega, who didn't hide the joyful prospect of that idea.

As a sound technician, in the sound booth, activated the recorded murmur of a crowd, Adam, in his head, ticked off the first target on his mental list:

Discredit Welshald Scottmen, aka Welshscot, by spreading the idea to humans and mutants that he was behind the attack of the cemetery: Check. Result: Increase of mutant death rate by 32.78% due to suspicion of Welshald, mutants will refuse his help due to their hatred of him and his religion. Death rate will increase to 97.12% after announcing rumours about Doctor Quack and Tikal the Echidna in ten minutes. Plus, combined violence, meaning both mutant and human aggression, against Welshald and pro-mutant medics will reach 67% exactly.

Next target: Establish a link between a fable and a fox...

"Now moving on, what are your feelings about the little trick Fox-Trot used to get into second place?"

The judge's moustache seemed to vibrate with dislike at the memory of the fox's achievement, "Obviously, I was surprised as anyone when my cousin allowed that child to go to the second round, and when he gave him six hundred extra rings I was starting to wonder if this man was indeed my cousin. That brat is a cheater, just like his dammed father!"

Adam pretend to look surprised, allowing a few minutes of silence before asking, "Wait a second, Nega. You knew that kid's father? I didn't know you hung out with mutants."

As the fake laughter echoed around the studio, joined with the silent and genuine laughter of the guards, Nega's scowling face soon unleashed a retort of, "The only mutants I 'hang' with, Mecha, are the ones I sentence to the gallows! And make no mistake; I was no friend of Amadeus Prower, that Mobian mutant lover!"

The recorded laughter soon reached the end of its tape, and Adam was quick to resume the role of the curious questioner. "So, if he wasn't a friend, how did you know this... Amadeus Prower?"

The judge leaned forward on his sofa, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose, before answering in a serious tone, "I saw that fox every time the Duke of Soleanna came to my courthouse. He was one of the members of the Metalix Guard."

Though the muttering sounds of surprise were fake, the guards began to exchange nervous glances with one another. In the homes of the viewers, children and teenagers (who were accustomed to myths and rumours) began to gasp as an idea popped into their heads.

"Wait a second..." muttered Adam, a smile that was a true testament to his own disbelief. "By the Metalix Guards, you mean the guys who are suspected to be Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles and... The Tails Doll?" inside his mind, Adam was smirking at how this information was already giving him the effect he had wanted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the guards, in the left exit wing of the stage, whisper to another guard, who nodded, in acknowledgement.

"Yes, that's who I mean," confirmed Nega, who couldn't help himself from hiding his smugness. "I remember them all, even those two, interfering mutant lovers who hung around with them, that bastard, Owen Scottmen, and a half-mutant bitch, called Fina Fox. To be honest, Mecha, I'm glad they're both—"

Nega was interrupted from his honest remark, as suddenly all the lights in the studio went out, leaving the whole room in shadow. The only small lights, which were not enough to give anyone sight, were the small flashing buttons that were on the studio camera.

While Nega and all the other people in the studio were taken off guard by the sudden failure of the lights, Adam was fuming in his seat. _Damn it, _he thought, _I didn't think there would be a blackout. This will throw the whole time schedule for this program. This one needed to go smoothly; we need to spread the rumours._

Mecha quickly managed to get over his flash of anger, before shouting to the camera, "Don't worry, viewers, it's just an equipment failure. The lights will come back on soon..." and as predicted, after a few seconds of total darkness, the light soon returned as powerful as ever. With a sigh of relief, Adam cheerfully cried, through an even faker smile, "There, just an equipment failure." He turned back to Nega. "Now, what were you saying, Judge Nega—"

But once again, Adam was interrupted. But this time, he was interrupted... by a scream. To be exact, five screams, one from Nega, his aging eyes popping in terror, the camera crew and the guard at the main door. They were also starring, all together, at the backdrop of the stage.

Mecha, as the guards from the stage exits flooded onto the stage, turned around in his chair, just in time to receive a drop of blood onto to his face. Blinking through his blood-stained vision, his body slowly shaking, Adam managed to see the source of the dripping blood.

Upon the starry backdrop, his motionless face contorted with pain, the guard who had been patrolling the walkway above was now dead, his body impaled onto the backdrop by a microphone pole, straight through his heart. But what caught everyone's eye, and the camera lense as it zoomed onto the point of interest, was the words that had been cut into his stomach:

_Can... you... see..._

Adam had never truly felt fear in his life before, since he had rarely seen or met anything that could induce such emotions, real or un-real. But as he slowly stood up from his chair and back away into the crowed of guards, who were positioned at stage centre (their black M16A2 assault rifles aimed at their dead comrade), the TV presenter felt a cold, unfamiliar sensation that seemed to chill him to his core.

But he soon managed to pull himself together, and remember that his show was live. Turning round to the cameraman, who was still staring at the corpse with shock (while subconsciously filming what he saw with his mounted camera), Adam barked, "What are you doing, you fool! Turn that off, now!"

The cameraman didn't respond at first. Both of his fellow crew mates had to shake him before he took in what Mecha had said. He nodded at his boss, who was now showing a real expression of anger that broke his recent cool guy persona, and began to turn off the camera. But after a few seconds, the cameraman frowned and stated, "It won't turn off, Boss. I've lost all manual control of the power switch. I can't turn it off and it's still broadcasting!"

Adam growled, while Nega just continued to cower on the sofa. By now, the four guards on stage had been joined by another guard who had been stationed at the secret exit in the stage's left wing and the guard by the main entrance had moved to cover the camera crew. They were all putting on brave faces, as their eyes drifted across the room in search of the killer, but you could see their fingers quiver around the guns they held.

Not bothering to keep up his character, Mecha raised his head towards the sound booth and yelled, "What are you doing in there? Stop the show, now, or you'll all—"

The cameraman, his hands still gripping his camera, was un-wise to follow his boss's gaze with his lense. For what he caught on screen wasn't a pretty sight.

The sound booth's lights were all turned off, unless you count the small flickering buttons and screens. But that just made the blood easier to see, as it spattered across the booth's glass window. As Adam and his entourage gazed, fearfully, they saw a hand smack against the glass. A sound technician's face soon followed, which bore a gaping wound that seemed to be the only thing keeping his jaw in place. As his blood spewed onto the glass, he managed to gargle a weak, "Help... me...", before a gloved hand shot out of the darkness, grabbed the back of the technician's head and pulled. And as he melted away into the shadows, the sound booth's blinder dropped down, hiding the sound booth from the world.

Before anyone could recover from what they saw, music started to burst from the speakers; soft, soothing music that was daunting to all who knew it. As the intro came to the end, a clear, soft voice began to sing:

_Can you see? The sun is shinin' on me.  
>It makes me feel so free, so alive,<br>It makes me want to survive..._

Adam, as the cheerful song started to wash over him, began to feel that unfamiliar feeling, a feeling he knew was fear. It had already taken Nega, who was now grabbing his moustache in fright, and the guards, who could no longer stop their guns from shaking in their hands, but it was the camera crew who were affected the most.

For the moment that verse had ended, the lights overhead began to flicker on and off. The man on the left side of the camera, a porky blonde, was fidgeting like a madman. But besides the obvious look of fear in his eyes, you could see that his entire body was sagging under guilt. Before anyone could stop him, he bolted for the main door, screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'M SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO KILL HER! SPARE ME, TAILS DOLL, PLEASE!"

_And the sky, it makes me feel so high.  
>The bad times pass me by…<em>

Mecha watched the man sprint towards the door, as the lights above it stopped flickering and died, casting the exit in gloom and shadow. In a vain attempt to stop the fleeing man, Adam shouted after him, his voice managing to hide his own fear, "Come back here, you coward!"

The man turned around, his back pressed against the shadows, and yelled at his boss, "SHUT THE HELL UP, MECHA! I'M NOT GONNA DIE HERE FOR YOUR STUPID TV-" but unknown to the terrified man, a small, red glow appeared in the shadows behind him...

'_Cause today is gonna be a brighter day._

In the reflection of the camera's lense, you could see the man's mouth widen in a scream of pain, as the head of an axe emerged from his stomach. It was only a few seconds, in which the man's stomach started to spill onto the floor, before the axe head turned in the wound, causing more blood to leave the dying guard. And as the guards watched the life leave the man's eyes, all paralysed by terror, the axe was pulled back into the shadows, taking its victim along with it.

_Can you feel the sunshine?  
>Does it brighten up your day? <em>

Back on stage, one of the guards, the dark-skinned one, began to take charge of the situation. Turning to the rest of his comrades, he managed to stomach his horror and instead gave out orders. "Listen up, guys! I don't care if you're pissing your pants. We need to get Mecha and Nega outta here! You," he pointed at the grassy-haired guard, "and me will escort them to safety! The rest of you, find this son-of-a-bitch, now!"

_Don't you feel that sometimes,  
>You just need to run away?<em>

The other guards didn't have time to complain, as another set of lights stopped flickering completely, bringing the shadowy veil right next to the camera. At the same time, the last member of the camera crew decided that he couldn't take it anymore, but before he could run away like his predecessor, a whooshing sound filled the air.

_Reach out for the sunshine._

The man didn't even have time to gasp, as he felt a thin wire curl around his throat. Even if he had tried to grab onto his friend, the camera man, instead of groping at the cord around his neck that was beginning to pull him into the air, his so-called friend was too busy pointing his camera at the apparition he was being hoisted into the air by.

_Forget about the rain._

He didn't stay in the air for long, since the chord had managed to dig into his flesh so deeply. It was a quick death. He died long before he hit the floor… well, long before everything below his neck had fallen to the floor. The head too, in time, came down to earth. But the blood, the fresh, crimson blood that flew through the air took even longer to fall, and it didn't even return to its owner. Though the camera, Mecha and Nega was miraculously left untouched, the cameraman and the guards received a splatter on every inch of their clothing.

_Just think about the good times,  
>And they will come back again. <em>

The dark-skinned guard, before he could lose his nerve once more, turned to his grassy-haired friend and roared, "GRAB NEGA AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Not waiting for a reaction, the dark-skinned guard followed his own advice and grabbed Mecha. Or he at least tried, for Mecha smacked away the guard's hand, hissing, "Get your hands off me."

_Feel the sunshine..._

He almost did, for as the row of lights above the front part of the stage died, an axe shot out from the darkness, narrowly missing Adam's wrist by millimetres.

_Without you, there's nothing for me to do.  
>Can you feel the sunshine, too?<br>It's coming through, it makes me feel brand new._

Instead, the bloody edge of the axe collided with the grassy-haired guard's head as he pulled Nega to his feet. The judge couldn't help but scream, as the guard's head was cleaved in two, brains and blood spattering his black judge robes.

_When your here, I wish you were always near._

Before the axe managed to smash into the backdrop, Nega was already running towards the left stage exit, screaming like a frightened school girl. Unfortunately for the Asian guard, who was in Nega's way, the old man pushed the guard out of the way. And as the judge's robes vanished off stage, the Asian guard toppled off the front end of the stage and fell into the shadows.

'_Cause everything's so clear, and today..._

Out of true loyalty and courage (plus a bit of true stupidity), the German guard dropped his weapon rushed to the aid of his friend. Stopping at the edge of the stage, he reached out his hand into the shadows to pull his friend's hand, which was groping out of the darkness. But as their fingers brushed together, the Asian's hand was sucked back into the shadows.

_And today is gonna be a brighter day._

His friend didn't need to mourn or feel sorry for himself, for he did manage to grab someone's hand... or rather, a burnt, gloved hand grabbed his own.

_Can you feel the sunshine?  
>Does it brighten up your day?<em>

The German yelled and writhed in pain, as his hand was crushed by the Tails Doll like an egg. But the pain soon left him, along with every other feeling, as a knife, stained with dried blood, was driven into his exposed gullet. And as his eyes rolled into his skull, the Tails Doll released the German's cold hand and watching him as his corpse joined the shadows.

_Don't you feel that sometimes,  
>You just need to run away? <em>

And that is exactly what Adam did. Having taken all he could bear, the TV presenter, along with the dark-skinned guard, bolted towards the left stage exit, leaving the blonde guard and the camera man (who was still filming the entire nightmare with his camera) to the hands of the Tails Doll.

_Reach out for the sunshine.  
>Forget about the rain.<em>

The blonde guard began to back away from the front of the stage, every move he made corrupted by the pure horror gripping his heart. This same fear was present in the camera man, who was trapped on all sides by shadow, which he was kept from by the single light that flickered above him.

But soon, his eyes and lense spotted another light, a light that was burning before him like the glint in the Devil's claws. First, it was only the jewel. But as thuds sounded from the stage's front steps, the antenna came to light, then the back of the mask, until finally the whole, dirty trench coat was visible. The camera man could only see his burnt and bloody body, but the blonde-haired guard could clearly see the terrifying face of the Tails Doll, as he took one slow step towards him.

_Just think about the good times. _

Sweat was dripping down the blonde man's face, as he continued to back away from the walking nightmare, clenching his rifle in his hands...wait... his rifle?

_And they will come back again. _

And as his mind started to work again, courage managed to break through his fear. Without hesitation, the blonde guard raised his weapon, snapped off the safety and aimed it straight at the trench-coated man's chest. "GO TO HELL, YOU FREAK!" And with that, he pulled the trigger.

_When the sun goes down. _

The first piece of lead ripped through the still air like silk. It soon buried itself into the Tails Doll's chest, slicing through cloth and skin as if cutting cheese. So followed the other bullets, peppering the masked man's rib cage like a hail storm. The blonde guard began to laugh with glee, as he emptied his magazine with a confident grin on his face. But what he failed to notice was that the Tails Doll hadn't moved a single muscle since the bullets started to fly...

_I feel like I am waiting,  
>For another day.<br>When the clouds go away._

The blonde's joy soon vanished, when he noticed that the Tails Doll wasn't toppling. The courage that had reared its head was soon smothered with fear again, as the Tails Doll tilted his head to his side, his buttoned eyes aimed at the bullet holes in his chest.

_Can you feel it?  
>Ooh-hoo...<em>

Suddenly, without warning, a squelching sound started to come from the Tails Doll. It took no time for the blonde to find the cause of the noise, which sent him stumbling back into the stage's backdrop, his eyes alight with fear and disgust.

_Can you feel it?  
>Oh...<em>

Like watching a slow motion rewind of a tree, all of the bullets were forcing their way back the way they came. As they slowly oozed back out of the masked man's body, the flesh started to reanimate itself, not exactly healing, but just reforming dead, and decrypted flesh. Even when the bullets bounced to the floor, the trench coat started to repair itself until it was back to its normal, dirty self.

_Can you feel it?  
>Oh...<br>Can you feel it?_

When the blonde guard got to his feet, his back now pressed firmly against the backdrop, he found that his head was adjacent to the axe that had cleaved the grassy-haired guard's head. But any further thoughts of attack died, so the guard just stood there, staring at the approaching figure that heralded his doom.

The Tails Doll was soon standing right in front of the guard, towering over him like a guillotine's shadow. He slowly raised his right hand and placed it upon his axe, his fingers curling around its handle at a taunting pace.

And as the cameraman watched, his hands glued around his camera, the last set of light above the stage died, and the blonde guard began to scream. And when the screaming stopped, so did the speakers fall silent, leaving the camera man in his small circle of light.

Scared and alone, the cameraman's limbs slowly began to freeze as a chill began to drip down his spine. His breathing was deep and ragged, his eyes wider than an owls. He tried to pray to Solaris, to someone who could save him from this nightmare. But all it did was allow a face, a scared, scarred face to drift before his mind's eye. All it did was recall the soft, sea breeze on his face and the soft feeling of the bundle in his hands. All it did was bring back the sound of his baby daughter's screams as he dropped her into the sea.

A tear dropped down the man's cheek, as he remembered his crime. If she hadn't been a mutant, his wife wouldn't have threatened to leave him if he didn't get rid of their child. If he had been stronger, she would still be alive...

Knowing what to do, he released the camera, walked towards the stage and knelt down onto his knees. His face tear strewn but determined, he lowered his head and muttered, firmly, "Do it, Tails Doll. Let me see her again..." He closed his teary eyes. "...Let me say I'm sorry..."

And from the shadows, the Tails Doll fulfilled the man's request. Managing to stay out of the camera's view, the trench coated man raised his axe slowly into the air, and with the speed and accuracy of an eagle, he gave the kneeling man a quick and almost painless death.

And as his body slumped to the side, as the camera finally turned off and as the Tails Doll left to pursue his goals, the man's spirit began to soar.

And somewhere, in a place where no mortal can go, a red-feathered eagle was carrying a new born baby in his arms. As he smiled down at the giggling baby, his ears picked up the sound of an approaching stranger. Turning round, he saw a man run towards him, panting and sweating like he had never done before. He soon reached the eagle, causing the baby to start crying.

This caused the eagle to be weary of the new comer. But when he saw the man's pleading face, as he pointed at the baby, the eagle decided to give him a chance. Carefully, he gave the little girl over to the man, the prior still balling at the top of her lungs.

But at the sight of her father's tears, the baby stopped crying, her eyes wide with surprise. Then her father hugged her, whispering apology after apology, pouring his heart and soul out to try and amend his greatest sin. The baby's face was blank for awhile after he had finished. But soon the baby began to giggle again, her little arm hugging her father forgivingly.

Watching from afar, Tori smiled at the reunited family. He walked over to the father, patted him on the back and gestured towards the huge arks of light. The man slowly nodded, knowing where he, his daughter and this boy should go. With his daughter in his arms and the boy by his side, they walked towards the arks of heaven, where they would live together in peace.


	27. Two Nocturnal Knights Part II

**domi|note: **This chapter is written entirely by **Welshscot.**

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Now clear your minds. It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning. Don't give it any help; it knows too much already—Poltergeist<br>_…_  
><em>**Anthem of Our Dying Day**_  
><em>._  
>Chapter Twenty Seven<br>_._  
><em>"I'm coming up on infrared, there is no running that can hide you... Coz I can see in the dark."

_Infra-red _by Placebo

* * *

><p>D a u . M a r c h o g i o n . S t e l c i o . <em>P a r t . Two<em>

Running was something that Adam Mecha rarely had to do. He never had to hurry before, because he was always on time, he always stuck to his schedule. But it was also true that he had never felt fear, never known how cold his sweat could turn or how fast a chill could ripple down his spine.

He and the dark-skinned man, despite their positions of class and social importance, were untied in fear, as they ran down the flight of stairs, desperate to escape their pursuer. And as their hands slid down the hand railings on the wall, leaving stains of sweat behind them, they both glanced behind, their fearful eyes alert for any sign of their pursuer.

It was hard to believe that these individuals had been somewhat content with their lives, and what lives they were. Adam Mecha was a well known, respected TV presenter and the dark-skinned man was a guard, a guard with, or had, many friends. On the surface, these two led lives that were rewarding in their own ways, with money or for their own enjoyment. But when you peel that image away, no matter how big or small it might have been, you can clearly see a filth that could only come from the deepest part of Hell.

It was hard to see the seams in Adam's face, for everything about him was laced together from lies and deception. But humans and Mobians seemed oblivious to this man's fake smiles and phoney charms as they took in his words, which bent their minds and souls to the ideas of his master, Eggman. Even though mutants could see through his sweetened lies and masks, they were rendered powerless by the rumours and stories that Adam wrote or said in the magazines and programs he owned.

Even though Mecha's work had corrupted many people, old and young, the acts that they commit due to their hatred and fear of mutants were still unforgivable. Just half an hour ago, the dark-skinned guard and his friends had beaten and killed a young Mobian boy and had tried to have their way with his sister. If you ever asked him, which may never come to pass, why he did something so atrocious he would probably bring up Mammoth Mogul, and say, "He just shows what would happen to us decent folk if mutants get any power or money. They'd be killing us all for kicks if they get on top- so we need to keep them down where they belong." But like any group, a bad apple will poison the rest and change their colour to something that may not judge the true taste. And is it really an excuse from the actions of another, to commit wrongs, take rights and judge worth to the extent were you become Jude, Jury and Executer? And even then, the dark skinned guards may have other motives...

Right now, as Adam and the guard jumped the last couple of stairs, you could see that the phrase 'you reap what you sow' comes in at full force. These two would never have believed that what they had sown, being violence and fear, would come in the form of something they had never truly believed in. They wouldn't have imagined that they would've been shaken from their world, being the studio/stage that was about three floors above them, by the urban legend, the avenger of mutants, the Tails Doll.

Even though they hadn't seen the Tails Doll clearly, it was no question to them that it had been him. The Tails Doll had come for Adam and all of his mutant hating workers. Hearing a song that was left at a crime scene was coincidence, hearing it again, while watching men being dragged into the shadows, was not.

Leading his boss, the guard burst through the door at bottom of the flight of stairs, leading into a small office apartment, which to their horror was completely empty. There was no sign of a hurry to leave and no indications of bloodshed, but the ominous silence and the darkened vision did nothing to calm the guard's nerves.

On the other hand, Adam was beginning to take control of his raging new emotions, driving the fear from his system like an antibody destroying a virus. Though this office was supposed to be lined with workers, who usually either dragged their fingers across a dull coloured keyboard or went to and from the coffee machine, Adam knew that their time would be better spent moving rather than pondering on a mystery. He began to move again, though not as frantic as before, while hissing to the guard, "If you want to stay here and wait for the Tails Doll, by all means, do so." It was no surprise that the guard followed Mecha, his eyes still shifting from one shadow to another.

They soon navigated the darkened corridors, which were as barren and lifeless as the empty office, and reached the main lobby; a wide square room, lightly furnished with poor quality seats and a black desk that sat beside the double doors which lead to the main staircase, and to the freedom that the Mecha craved.

The dark-skinned guard was the first to reach the doors, both hands shooting for the handle like a man trying to grab a life line. To his horror, the door refused to budge and he heard something rattle on the other side of the door like a plank of wood was lodged between the handles along with the vivid sounds of heavy, frail wheezing. Since the guard had an average sized brain, he knew that the man who had barred this door and was out of breath so easily was...

"Eggman Nega, sir," he shouted, "Open the door, we need to get out of here!" Suddenly, from behind Mecha and the guard, the sound of heavy footfalls began to echo around the main lobby from the adjoining corridors. Even though terror started to seep into all their hearts, as black as they were, it was the old judge's who filled up the fastest. Releasing one more squeal of fright, the guard heard him scurry away from the door and down the flight of stairs, leaving the other two to the hands of the Tails Doll. Before the fear took complete control of the dark-skinned guard, he banged his fist onto the barracked door, roaring, "You son of a bitch! I hope Iblis finds you in your bed and drags you into the Cage!"

With the last fragment of his rage, he pulled his rife from his belt and aimed it at the corridor entrance he and Mecha had come through. _If this guy really is immortal, _thought the guard, sweat now trickling down his forehead. _Then at least I'm gonna die fighting. May Argus send me to his side and not to Iblis, the shadow devil._

And with that, he raised his gun's sight to his eye, flicked off the safety and curling his finger around the trigger. He couldn't see what Adam was doing, and to be honest he didn't care. He tried to take slow, steady breaths, but that just made his arm shake fervently so he just let his breathing run its course. The footsteps came closer and closer, until the point that they reverberated around the guard's ear drums like a scratched record. Then, after what seemed an age, a set of feet stepped over the corridor entrance's boundary line... along with another set and another set, all of which were wearing the same, custom brand boots that the dark-skinned guard was wearing.

Instead of the looming figure of the Tails Doll, there were three other guards, who were wearing bemused, confused and astounded expressions. They had no idea of the horror that the dark-skinned guard and their boss had experienced, no idea why the lights were off and oblivious as to why one of their own was pointing a gun at him.

The head of this trio, a stout brown-haired Irish man, was holding his hand up in mock-fear. "Jeez," he said, in a cocky tone, "I'm sure you're in enough shit by threatening a high-ranking judge with voodoo crap, no need to go blowing my head off." The dark-skinned guard seriously started to consider doing just that and would've, if this Irish prick's attitude wasn't distracting him from the horrible scenes he had just witnessed. He lowered the gun and whilst doing so, his eyes caught a glimpse of one of the other guards' faces.

The dark-skinned guard glowered at the other guard, a Yank with a shallow face, and demanded, "Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to be guarding Mecha, along with that Hispanic bastard!"

The Yank shrank away from his dark-skinned superior, his eyes darting around nervously. "A friend wanted to see me on the bottom floor, that's why I left you guys at the elevator..." It didn't matter that there was more to this statement then the American let on, but he quickly changed the subject, pointing an accusing finger at the dark-skinned guard. "B-but at least I'm no devil worshipper!"

The dark skinned guard growled at the Yank, who began to shrink away further and further from his superior's anger. "Call me a devil worshipper and I'll put a cap in your knees and leave you for the Tails Doll!"

The Irish guard laughed. "Ha, trust a voodooist to threaten a guy with a fake urban zombie legend." A thought then shot through the dwarf sized man's mind, causing him to laugh once more, "Wait, does this mean that the rumours are true, that you devil worshippers hang out at the Iron Domain?" The dark-skinned guard flexed his fingers, as if he wanted to wrap them around the Irish man's throat, which was as good as an answer. Laughing even harder, until the point where he was clutching his sides, he jeered, "Oh Solaris, how fucking funny is that? I never knew you were a part of a mutant loving religion of psychos! Does this mean you hang out with those terrorists, huh? Share a whore with Marsali the Dragon, Darken Gaia—oh, and the bitch's son, Welshscot. Maybe at the same time! Ha-!"

But the Irish man has had his last laugh. While he was bent double, he didn't see the dark-skinned guard stride over to him so he wasn't prepared to try and counter the iron fingers that took hold of his shirt. The other two guards back away, their eyes watching the dark-skinned guard's fists as he, while raising the Irish dwarf into the air with his other hand, rammed his fists into the stout man's gut. He then released the dwarf-sized man, who collapsed onto the floor, now clutching his stomach in pain.

"Like that, asshole," growled the dark-skinned guard, as he looked down at the Irish guard like looking at a pile of rubbish. "Well, if you want more, I suggest you keep talking. If not, then keep your jokes to yourself, they ain't funny. The Cult of Argus is something that my family have always believed in, before Marsali took control and dragged its name through the mud. They've embraced shadow voodoo, forbidden rituals and now the cult's been overshadowed by some old fool who started a religion to make a quick ring!"

The shallow faced Yank, with a bravery that would and could, be washed away by the Tails Doll, stepped forward tentatively and asked, "B-but most the Argus d—believers are mutants. Is that why you hate mutants?" he backed away again when the dark-skinned guard turned his heated gaze upon him.

"I actually don't give a crap if they're mutants or not," he scoffed. "I've actually met Welshscot, he ain't the most dedicated man, but he's clean and values the moral codes that all cultists should stand for. He ain't a thing like his mother, so I don't believe a word about him being the one attacking the church." To save the Yank from asking the question, the guard also added, "That bird we killed, I saw him hang around Darken. Anyone who deals with that bastard that doesn't involve putting his face into the ground is a shadow voodooist. I just said he was a mutant so you guys would help me get rid of him, didn't know he actually _was_ one."

There was a short pause after this, were the Yank stared at his superior, a man he thought he knew, with a look of scared disbelief and mistrust. The dark-skinned guard, on the other hand, was looking at the Yank with such a hateful loathing that it is quite hard to believe that he had been friends with the Yank or any of the other guards. The Irish dwarf, who had long since recovered from his injury, was definitely certain about his opinion of the dark-skinned guard, glaring angrily while rubbing his sore gut. The other guard...

"Will you cease your inane squabbling?" The four guards turned around, surprised that they had forgotten that their boss, Adam Mecha, was still in the room with them keeping as silent as a stationary sentinel. The dark-skinned guard, having been with Adam during and after the attack made by the Tails Doll, was shocked to see that his boss' face had lost all signs of fear, anger or any other emotion for that matter. The guards, who didn't even say a word to one another, agreed that this blank face suited Adam the most, not like his wooden smiles and forced laughs.

Mecha, without moving a muscle or shifting an eyebrow, addressed the guards in a blank tone, saying, "This is not the time for stupid human debates. I need a report from you three on why you came here, against schedule." When they just stared at him, blinking dumbly, Adam took a step closer, saying in a dark, evil tone that flowed from his tongue with ease, "Failure to report will result in the termination of your contract. Meaning: I will tear up your contracts and make sure you live off the streets for the rest of your lives. Now, I repeat in simple terms; tell me what you were doing before you got here."

The stout Irishman, who had been taken down a notch by the cultist guard, soon had a pale face and a lose tongue, which wildly began to flop. "I was delivering a message to one of the office workers from the first floor. Me and him..." He pointed at the Yank, "met on the stairs and reached this floor together. I reached the office I need to go to and we were about to part ways when the fire alarm went off."

The dark-skinned guard raised an eyebrow to this. If there had been an alarm, then surely he, the other guards (who were now dead) and Mecha would have heard it during the show or during the attack by the Tails Doll...

He shivered, the memory and images starting flood back, ten times worse than it had originally been. He looked down the corridor he had arrived through, the sweat now returning and dripping down his face. Why were they wasting their time and standing around like sitting ducks? The Tails Doll could come upon them any minute...

Adam, who seemed to have discarded any recollection of that event from his mind, just nodded at the Irishman to continue on. Gulping, the dwarf-sized man continued, saying shakily, "The office workers started to swarm out, screaming like Argus was chasing them. (This earned a growl from the dark-skinned guard). We thought the fire was happening in the office, so me and this guy..." he gestured to the Yank again. "...got some fire extinguishers and went to tackle the fire. We met the other guard," he pointed to him," there and he was already getting ready to help. But when we actually went into the office, the fire alarm had stopped ringing, the fire was gone. We checked around and there was no evidence of a fire, then lights went out. We then went off to the lobby and—WHAT THE FUCK?"

The dwarf-sized man was taken completely by surprise when the dark-skinned guard, the same one who had hit him before, grabbed by the shirt again and pulled him forwards. He would have complained, after he had gotten back to his feet, if he hadn't heard a whooshing sound and seen the silver-painted edge of an axe that had flown through the air, where his head had once been, and landed hard against the lobby's wall. Snapping his head to where the axe had come from, his eyes began to widen as they saw, in the very heart of the darkened corridor, a small glowing jewel, glowing an angry bloody red.

Without even flinching, Adam Mecha turned away from the guards, who were backing away from the corridor entrance, and faced the lobby wall that didn't have an axe sticking out of it. In a fast paced tone, without making a single mistake or taking more than one breath, the TV presenter said, "Entrance code 8763/Alpha/ Magma. ID: Unit 0001 Clarification code: Long live the Eggman Empire."

The moment he had finished, the wall he had addressed began to shake. In one shaky yet fast movement, a small, rectangular piece of the wall sank back. Then the piece of wall moved to the left, revealing a doorway to a pitch black room which was even darker than the lobby.

Under normal circumstances, the four guards would have questioned their boss on what they had just witnessed. But when one of them glanced behind them and saw that the Tails Doll's crystal was getting closer and closer, they all silently agreed to postpone the questions. Following the league of Adam, the guards dived across the room and hurried into the dark. Just as they all squeezed through, the red crystal's glow began to cast a crimson light upon the lobby. The guards, backing away into a darkness that was unfamiliar yet friendlier, watched the mechanism of the hidden door, as it moved the fake piece of wall back into place. Just as it began to sink back into position, the guards yelped when the red gemmed antenna popped into view between shrinking side space of the closing door, as if the owner would follow suit. But thankfully, the antenna slid out of view before the hidden door managed to trap it, thus, to the guards, the fake door was a hero.

Safe, for now, the four guards then began to ask themselves, "Where are we?" though not a true or straight answer, Adam Mecha, who had walked deeper into the darkness said tonelessly, "Light pattern three: activate."

And before those words could bounce off the wall, lights began to hum into existence. They were scattered randomly across the room and the vision they gave only gave a slight clarity amongst the gloom. From the main door, which was now closed, the room spanned out to form a small trapezium sized room. Far across from the door, placed before a metal railing that blocked access to a dark chasm, was a gigantic computer, its many flashing screens were one of the main sources of light in this pitch-black room. At the beginning of each wall was a side passage that led to a ladder that could be used to access the balconies that lined the walls. The ceiling was so high that it was impossible to see; only a couple of dangling wires were visible.

As Adam calmly walked to the computer, the four guards moved into the centre of the room, their emotions turning from fear to curiosity. The dark-skinned guard, who drifted closer to the left wall, started to feel a deep chill, which seemed to admit from the darkened chasm behind the computer. He also noticed, as he turned his eyes towards the floor, that a line of grates ran right through the middle of the room, probably to provide fresh air. The one thing that affected the guards the most was the pungent smell of oil and rubber, which could possibly destroy a man's nose if smelt for too long.

Adam, now at the computer, began typing into one of the keyboards, which looked old and slightly frostbitten. As he worked on his unexplained project, the other guards took a quick glance at his screen once in awhile. They saw some building blue-prints and comm channels, but they dare not ask directly. One thing that you do to keep your job is not to ask questions, especially if it looked like it involved Eggman.

In his head, Mecha was slowly processing the situation. _Within 24 hours, three sites have been complicated. One: the FF managed to infiltrate the Iron Domain. Importance: Lost contact with Weapon 1. Two: Whisker's warehouse was attacked. Importance: Proves that Lume the Cat was compromised, along with attack on this platform. Three: My centre of operations. Importance: Risk of destruction of this platform, but conformation of the identity of the Tails Doll... _

His fingers stopped typing, as a thought slipped into his line of processing. _Furthermore: Platform has experienced raw emotions outside of programming. Platform has become corrupted. Solution: Replace platform when danger has passed. _He resumed his work, which was a complete review of the systems of this floor.

He had also sent a request for backup, in case the Tails Doll broke through, and was expecting them to arrive in five minutes. All were armed with advanced weaponry and have basic knowledge of this location.

But the reason why Adam was still analysing the systems and appliances of the public floor was due to the bizarre story from the Irish guard, who was standing right in the middle of the room, a top of the grates. _It says, _thought Mecha as he examined the main screen, _that no fire alarm was activated in the past hour and all observation of the CCTV cameras show that no fire occurred, thus contradicting the guard's story. However, all the office workers, when they reached the lower floors, made calls to the fire department and got all of the other workers to leave the building. _

_Query: Why did they see a fire that didn't exist? Is this an ability of the Tails Doll, to summon illusions? Contradiction: The Tails Doll was attacking the studio upstairs. Nor did he have time to destroy the lights of this floor..._

Adam suddenly stepped away from the computer, his static eyes staring in alarm at his own chest. He had just noticed that his chest was slowly rising and falling, his shirt moving in time with the movements. He closed his eyes and his chest stopped heaving, and for three full minutes it stayed that way. He then opened his eyes, while his chest remained still. _I've spent far too much time in this platform. _He thought, his bland eyes slowly examining his own hands. _It's starting to copy organic movement, even though I turned off the human movement program. Am I... Am I turning human?_

Suddenly, the computer screens started to flash and flare. The four guards, who were spread across the room (the dark-skinned guard on the left, the Irish in the middle while the other two on the right), turned their gaze and saw the bold words that were flashing on the screen:

**Intruder alert! Unauthorised personnel detected!**

Without a word, the four guards turned to the closed main door, their weapons drawn and ready, the fear that had left them now returning its grip on their hearts. Adam, who showed no trace of fear, narrowed his eyes as he squinted at the shadows, an organic trait that had developed during his time on this platform. After scanning the balcony that lined the walls, his programming kicked in and a list of structural weaknesses appeared in his mind.

**No. 1: Floor grates**

The Irish guard, who was holding his pistol with shaking hands, took a step back, his feet almost slipping on the metal grate. "T-This is a-all v-voodoo crap..." he whimpered. "T-This is n-nothing but s-stupid Argus bull—"

The grate before him, without warning, burst open, its hinges making a deafening sound that sounded like nails against a board. The Irish guard did not have time to even scream, as a burnt, gloved fist slammed through his stomach, followed by another hand that grabbed the Irish man's face, which belonged to the Tails Doll who had leapt out of the grate. As the blood dribbled round the hole that the Tails Doll's arm had made, said trench-coated man began to squeeze the guard's stomach. He then dropped the blood covered organ, so he could then pull his arm down, while the other pulled at the dead guard's face, causing the Irish man's dead body to be ripped in half.

The dark-skinned guard had hated that Irish midget, be he would have never wished for that to happen to him, having your stomach punched out and then being torn in half. While his fear and terror rose to impossible levels, he managed to hide it and keep his gun aimed at the Tails Doll. Though, on the other side, the Yank was doing the opposite, while his comrade just stood stock still.

Adam, despite seeing one of his own men being torn apart in front of him, managed to smirk at the Tails Doll, who was now standing on the very grate he had come from. Then, Mecha started to laugh, a laugh so emotionless yet more real than any he had done before. Since the Tails Doll just stood there, his buttoned eyes gazing at the laughing man, Adam was given the time to speak, his voice full of an evil smugness.

"So, this is how far you have fallen, Amadeus Prower. Once one of the most respected guards in Soleanna, now a corpse that creeps around in the shadows. Your son must be really proud of you." The Tails Doll didn't make a move after this statement, but his hands did start to drift towards the inner layers of his trench coat. "But, now that we know who you are, it explains many things." Continued Mecha, who seemed totally unafraid, despite how much feat he had felt earlier. "If I recall, you and the rest of the Metalix guard knew Owen and Marsali Scottmen well. Knowing her track record, there's no question that she was the one who summoned you."

Adam shook his head, as another laugh escaped his lips, "But despite this information, I find the most interesting thing is that you made me feel fear." The Tails Doll's hand, which was about to pull out an axe from within his coat, stopped moving for a second, startled by that last remark. This also took the other three guards by surprise. Mecha chortled once more, his head now hanging limply forwards, before suddenly saying, "Activate transfer to prototype combat platform 0003!"

With that, Adam's body became lifeless; his limbs slumping to his frozen sides. Before any questions could be raised, a loud, echoing sound emitted from the dark chasm behind the computer. Then, to the guards' shock, two large, metal hands shot out of the dark chasm. Following that, a gigantic silver, skull-like head emerged, followed by a chest and torso, which were connected to a thick column of wire and metal.

Once the robot had fully risen from its chasm, its eyes started to ominously glow an ice-cold blue. As the Tails Doll continued to stare at the giant robot, looking neither scared nor impressed, the Yank guard took a step forward, eyeing what he presumed was his boss. "Fuck me..." he whispered, running one of his hands through his greasy hair, "...Adam Mecha's an AI. Now I've seen everything." He gave a quick glance at the other guard behind him, who seemed even calmer than the fox-masked man, "How the hell can you be so calm? We're in a room that shouldn't exist with an undead murder and our boss, who turned into a robot. Are you stupid, or something?"

The Hispanic guard didn't respond, his eyes fixed upon, not Adam's new robot-form, but the Tails Doll, who was focused in the direction of a pair of glowing green eyes.

The sudden scream drew the eyes of all, including the Tails Doll and Adam, whose new eyes slowly turned in the direction of the Yank guard's screams. What they saw baffled them, but only the dark-skinned guard showed fear. With his buttoned eyes, the trench-coated man observed the two blades that were sticking out of the Yank's chest. Underneath the blood, the blades were steel blue and as long as katana blades.

As the Yank's eyes began to lose their life, the owner of the two blades began to slowly lift the dead body of the ground. As the dead man's feet slowly rose, his murderer's own legs were shown, to the combined shock of all, and to the Tails Doll's anger.

First his blue-and-silver-plated legs came into view, then his torso and chest, which were the same colour as before, but with spikes running along his back, the odd thrusters poking out and the old, ragged uniform of the Metalix guard. Then, finally, the head came into view, showing Metal Sonic's Metalix hat and his new neon green-coloured eyes.

With the body now over his head, Metal Sonic threw the dead guard backwards, allowing it to fly straight into the wall. He lowered his arms, while the blades he had used slowly retracted into said arms, until they vanished from sight.

The dark-skinned guard couldn't help himself. He could no longer hold in his fright and horror. The Tails Doll was horrifying enough, but with Metal Sonic here, one of the most deadly robots that Eggman owned, he knew that this place would be his grave. He dropped his gun and slowly back-up against the wall, whilst silently praying for some kind judgment on his soul.

The Tails Doll may have a face of cloth, but his gloved hands were all that was needed to see the anger and hatred that was rising within him, as he looked at Metal Sonic, his once best-friend-turned-traitor. It took a lot of restraint to stop him from pulling out his axe and chopping the robot apart, which he didn't want to do, since that would leave him open for an attack from Adam in his new body. He may be immortal, but he didn't know how deep that chasm, which the robot had risen from, was.

Adam, on the other hand, was surprised for different reasons entirely. Using his new body's mouth, he addressed Metal Sonic in a deep, distorted version of his old voice. **"Weapon 1: release auto control and allow manual control!" **Nothing happened. Metal Sonic just gazed at Adam, which is when the robot noticed that his eyes were neon green, not blazing red.

_That is not part of his design, _thought Adam. He then, using the software installed into his main programming, activated a scan, which turned his square blue eyes yellow. The information he received would have made a human blink twice. _Weapon 1's platform has been upgraded. His receptors have been altered and his weapon system has been changed. _In his binary brain, he made a list of the changes:

**Weapons: More control over the mutant DNA power infused into his exoskeleton, thus creating blades.**

**Machine gun has been replaced as well as his standard sniper rifle. New model has been installed into left arm: a customised Vidhwansak-**

_**Warning: Hacking attempt detected.**_

Adam automatically blocked the attempt to take control over his systems. Even if he hadn't traced the source, his new eyes clearly saw that Metal Sonic was interacting with a hologram panel on his left hand. Adam knew only one person who had created a hologram computer, and that was...

Metal Sonic lowered his hand, the hologram panel disappearing into thin air, just as Adam started to laugh, an even darker laugh than the one he has performed in his old body. While the dark-skinned guard was already scared out of his mind, the two titans, the Tails Doll and Metal Sonic, just stared blankly at the robot, who soon turned his laughing into words.

"**I see now. The reason why I lost control over Weapon 1 was because you managed to override my control. And now you've upgraded him so you could use him to get rid of me." **Adam then raised one of his gigantic hands and pointed it at Metal Sonic, while shouting in a distorted tone, **"I knew that I had become a liability, since Lume had been compromised, but I never thought you, Eggman, would get rid of me in such a crude fashion." **

Metal Sonic did not reply to the robot's statement, but that did not matter to Adam. Weapon 1 was just another slave, a broken man turned into a loyal servant. In fact, ever since Weapon 1, or by his old name Terri Cooper, had been created by Snively, Adam had been controlling him personally; for fulfilling the wishes of his creator. Now the table have been turned: Eggman now controlled Weapon 1, Metal Sonic, and Adam was to be destroyed to tie up loose ends.

Mecha then paused, his programming finally bring up a valid point: **Why am I considering resisting Eggman's wishes? If he wants me gone, I should not resist. He will just replace me with a new AI...**

But, without even thinking about it, he pushed away that piece of his programming. _No, _thought Adam, sourly. _If this is how Eggman repays me for my years of service, then screw him. _If he had been in his old platform, he might have smiled slightly. _Ha... It wasn't the platform that was corrupted. It was my core programming. I really am turning human..._

But he casted such thought aside. He needed to deal with the two men that now endangered his existence. **"But all that means is that I have to squash two Metalix guards!" **Then, using surprising speed, Adam quickly raised one of his enormous hands and brought it swiftly down upon the Tails Doll.

Unprepared, the Tails Doll tried to leap to the side, in an attempt to avoid Adam's hand. But he needn't have bothered. Just as he was about to move, he was suddenly grabbed from the side. The masked man was right to suspect that Metal Sonic meant harm, but he was pleasantly surpised by the fact that the speeding robot had grabbed him to pull him out from harm's way.

As Adam raised his hand, his blue eyes fixed upon his intended target, he noted the fact that his sensors hadn't picked up any trace of sound from Metal Sonic. This was odd, since his speed depended solely on his thrusters, which always created a distinct and rather loud sound. In an attempt to try and solve this mystery, he tried to scan the robotic hedgehog once more, before his master realised and try and override Adam himself.

**Scanning... Device confirmed: Eggman's prototype Sound Dampener Field detected. Properties: Can reduce all sound waves to the point where it can't be heard.**

_That explains how Weapon 1 managed to use his speed while reaming silent, _thought Adam as he disengaged his scan. _Eggman tried to trick me, telling me that it was stolen. If so, then he's also equipped him with the Delirium Nanites, small drones that are designed to manipulate organic and robotic senses. That also explains why the office worker thought there was a fire, when there really wasn't one. _

Back to Metal Sonic and the Tails Doll, the latter violently shook himself from the metal hedgehog-like robot. The fox-masked man didn't care why Eggman, who apparently was controlling Metal Sonic, saved him from Mecha's attack, he just wanted to tear the traitor apart...

The trench-coated man was about to draw out his axe, but as he glared at Metal Sonic from behind his buttoned eyeholes, his hand froze in mid air. He didn't know why, but as he looked into Metal Sonic's neon eyes, he saw something that he couldn't explain. And it wasn't just the eyes, everything about the robot, or cyborg, seemed different. Well, different for Metal Sonic, but the Tails Doll sensed something that seemed very familiar. And it was that feeling that stayed the trench-coated man's hand.

Adam, as he readied his systems for the oncoming fight, watched as the Tails Doll and Metal Sonic turned, as one, to face the column supported robot. Though Adam had expected them to tear each other apart, it was clear to him that they made a temporary truce so they could deal with their main enemy. The Tails Doll pulled out his axe from his trench coat and held it firmly in his right hand, the blade itself covered with the dried blood of his previous victims. Metal Sonic raised his left arm, which quickly began to change. The metal forearm began to spin like a revolver, where the ammunition of the sniper rifle was being stored, and out of the metal palm shot a small gun barrel, which was gradually aimed at Mecha's combat robot.

Before Adam could react, Metal Sonic fired his weapon; the gunshot lost due to the cyborg's Sound Dampener. With superb accuracy, the bullet pierced Adam's left blue eye, which shattered like a common glass bottle. Like he was really in pain, Adam raised his giant, robotic hands to his broken eye, cursing and hissing violently.

Seeing an opportunity, the Tails Doll raised his axe over his head and threw it at the exposed chest plate of Adam's combat robot. If not for the masked man's unnatural strength, the bloodied axe would have just bounced off the steel platting, instead of cutting through the surface and making a foothold. At first glance it seemed like a waste of a weapon. But Metal Sonic, as his weapon reloaded by its self, saw the transparent wires that were tied around the handle of the axe, their others ends in the hands of the Tails Doll.

With both hands, the masked man pulled his colourless wires. Though the axe didn't move, as it was stuck in Adam's chest plate, the sounds of creaking metal and strained cables sounded as the chest plate began to tear away from Adam. The AI, realising the masked man's intentions, quickly moved into action. As the Tails Doll tried to pull off Adam's chest plate again, the robot activated the giant, machine turrets that were installed into his giant arms. With his single lense, which was gleaming like an icicle, he targeted the Tails Doll, and—

**"Argh!" **

Mecha couldn't help it, couldn't help the flare of pain that was shooting through his left arm, no matter if the feeling, the pain, was a glitch in his stimulate program or not. Whatever the case, Adam still clung to the fact that Metal Sonic, who had managed to silently speed up to his arm, had pierced Adam's arm turret with his katana arm blades.

Ignoring the system reports and data strands that were running through his binary brain, Mecha acted instinctively, activating the missile silos that were installed in his back. As Metal Sonic retracted his blades from Adam's arm, his head shot up, his sensors picking up the heat signatures of three approaching missiles. Jumping off the arm, the cyborg, while activating the rockets in his feet, aimed his sniper rifle arm at the oncoming missiles and fired. With unbelievable accuracy, the bullet managed to hit the tail end of the first missile, causing said missile to spin off course and smash into the other two missiles, resulting in a small, spectacular explosion.

Metal Sonic landed, silently, next to his temporary partner, who was just about to tug his wires for the final time. At last, giving in to the Tails Doll's unnatural strength, the wired-up axe wrenched itself out of the chest plate, the latter following suit. Adam screamed in pain, his voice like nails dragging against a chalk board, as his chest plate broke away and fell into the dark chasm.

As the word **'DANGER'** flashed across his broken, robotic vision, Adam realised that he needed to retreat, to escape from the impending doom that he would receive at the hands of the two Metalix guards. But before he could start transferring his code off sight, to a different sever or platform that was out of harm's way, another set of words blared in front of his eyes.

_**Warning: Hacking attempt detecte-9r4u**_

_**Activating transfer to standard platform 0001**_

Adam didn't even have time to utter a word as he felt himself leave his combat robot, and into his old, weak body. But one thing that he did do was feel scared, terrified, emotions that he should know in context but should never be able to feel himself wracking his body with unpleasant sensations.

Soon, Adam was seeing through the eyes of his old platform, which had been standing like a frozen statue in front of the computer, which had been left untouched in the fight against his combat robot. The robot was soon subjected to another well aimed shot from Metal Sonic, who, with deadly accuracy, fired at the exposed temperature unit, resulting in a minor yet devastating explosion. With the force of the explosion being the cause, Adam's combat robot was blasted off the column that held it up and into the dark, seemingly bottomless chasm.

Adam quickly remembered how to move his human shaped platform, scuttling back towards his computer as the Tails Doll slowly approached. His axe back in his coat, the trench-coated man flexed his right fingers, which were soon wrapped around the handle of a blood stained knife which had slipped into his hand from his sleeve. Metal Sonic followed his league, but stayed far behind the Tails Doll, just in case their truce had, in either his or the masked man's opinion, run its course. His sniper rifle deactivated the metal cyborg still had his arm raised, his other metallic fingers pressing the holographic surface of his hacking device.

Adam, his back now pressed against the edge of the computers, was looking frightful, scared and pathetic on the outside, while on the inside he was having a fiery binary battle as he tried to block Metal Sonic's attempts (or rather the one controlling him, Eggman's attempts) to divulge into his memory banks. Though Mecha, even in his raging emotional state, managed to protect his memory files, Metal Sonic managed to access Adam's sensors and turn the pain receptors to maximum.

Breathing hard, even though he had no real lungs to use, Adam stared into the buttoned eyes of the Tails Doll; who was twirling the knife in his gloved hand, deliberately to stir the fear he could see in the once wood-like eyes of Adam...

**Attention: Squad Solaris Pass Code has been verified. Opening doors...**

The two Metalix guards whipped round towards the hidden door, the entrance to this classified location, which was slowly starting to open. Adam, as he watched the door's mechanism work, felt another human emotion, one that he usually spat on, as it was the foolish creation of humans; hope...

With a low thud, the hidden door fully opened and through that door, that small window of hope of Adam's life, stormed his elite guards, Squad Solaris. There were eight of them, in all, all armed with state of the art HGO assault rifles (courtesy of the Iron King) and full body armour, far better than the group of weaklings who were now dead except for the dark-skinned guard (who was still scared witless against the wall).

It was only when they filed into the middle of the dimly lit room did Adam realise that the Tails Doll and Metal Sonic had disappeared, vanished into the menacing darkness. Keeping his back to the computer and his fluctuating emotions under control, Adam glared at the leader of Squad Solaris, trying to retain his presence of authority. "What took you so long?" he barked.

The squad leader chose to ignore that and instead of answering, he calmly said, "Adam, sir, we need to get you off sight, ASAP." Pointing to the exit with his gun, the squad leader continued, "Don't worry, sir, we got you c—"

But before he could finish his sentence, the hidden door suddenly began to close again, as the computer suddenly sounded:

**Warning: Quarantine Activated! Lockdown initiated!**

None of the elite guards could have possibly stopped the door from shutting, trapping them in a room where two killers were hiding in the shadows. It was good that they were trained to deal with stressful situations, meaning that any fear was buried deep inside of them... but how long would that last?

Adam, who had given in to his unexplainable emotions once more, retreated back to the computer whilst shouting franticly, "Guards, spread out and find the Tails Doll and Metal Sonic, now!"

One of the elite guards, a scarred blue-eyed man, raised an eye brow and scoffed, "With all due respect, sir, but the Tails Doll is just an urban legend. And I thought Metal Sonic was on Eggman's—"

The guard behind the scarred man chose the wrong time take a deep breath. For as his mouth opened a fraction, the scarred man's head suddenly exploded, causing some of the blood to fly through the air and land in the mouth of the other guard. The moment his tongue recognised the taste, the guard gasped and gagged, his own dilemma more important than the death of one of his colleges.

The other guards though, quickly turned their weapons' barrels towards the dead body of the scarred guard, which had collapsed to floor like a puppet with cut strings. Even though it seemed impossible, the guards silently agreed that the killing strike had been caused by a powerful gun, probably a sniper rifle, given the hole the bullet had made into the steel wall.

Adam knew that Metal Sonic had been responsible, that the shot's sound had been hidden by his Sound Dampener device. But as he starred at the dead body, he didn't even think about informing the other guards of this, and other, important details. He still remained silent as the elite guards began to move out, to scour the room for the two killers. While the squad leader took a defensive position in front of Adam, the remaining guards split up into pairs. The first pair started to sweep the main area, pointing their weapons into the dark corners of the room and over the railing into the dark chasm, completely ignoring the trembling dark-skinned guard. The other two pairs had each chosen to investigate the separate corridors that each led to a ladder that took them to the balconies above.

While the guards searched, whilst keeping their hands steady and their minds clear of fear, Adam began to ponder: _Why don't I just tell them about the Tails Doll's and Metal Sonic's capabilities? It would increase their chances to... to... _

He trailed off, his binary thought clouded by thoughts of despair. Adam then looked down at his hands, the two flesh-skinned, metal-boned components lined with wires, not veins. _Even if I do survive, _he thought, miserably. _Do I really want to exist with these emotions, with pain, joy and maybe even sorrow? And if so, is it because I despise them, like I always did as I examined people, or that I don't want to live a counterfeit life? _

As Adam stewed in his despair, a shout emitted from the right corridor. "Fuck, causality! Everyone get over here, ASAP!" The guards in the main area, who had been investigating near the right corridor entrance, were the first to arrive on the scene. By the feet of the other two guards, who were both dark-haired twins, was the bloody, mangled body of...

One of the guards, a red head, who had been patrolling the main area, gave the two twins an accusing eye. "Is this some kind of joke, you two?" as he said this, one of the guards who had been patrolling the left corridor and the upper balcony (who had green eyes), climbed down the ladder to the upper balcony. As he stepped off the ladder, his eyes found the dead body and a frown grew on his face. "What the hell?" he cried. "How'd our leader get from the computer room to here? I thought he was guardin' Adam."

As the twins began to compose a reply to these questions, the fake dead body of their squad leader vanished before their eyes. At the same time, a short scream sounded above, which was soon swiftly silenced and followed by a thud that came from the main area. The five guards, with their weapons at the ready, charged out of the short corridor, back into the main area. Their squad leader was waiting for them, guarding Adam, who was very much alive, and the body of the green-eyed guard's partner. Spread eagled on the floor, his rifle nowhere to be seen and his mouth dribbling out blood, it was clear at first glance what had happened to him. As if the dead man's head had been waiting for an audience, it slowly rolled onto one side, causing blood and a loose, cut tongue to flow onto the floor.

As the guards watched the blood expand into a puddle, the guard, the other one who had been patrolling the main area and had been the one who had gotten blood in his mouth, felt fear slowly wrap its icy cold fingers round his heart. This was why he, and only he, screamed as the next event occurred.

The squad leader, who had been about to shout his team members back into patrolling, gasped as he felt a set of metal fingers curl around the top of his skull. Though his shouts and screams became muted, as if Metal Sonic's touch had stolen his voice, his face was still ripe with terror as he was hoisted into the air. He and the flying cyborg managed to escape into the pitch black ceiling with its suspended cables, but the other four guards (not including the one that was just screaming) still took aim at the spot where they vanished. Praying that they didn't hit their own, they let loose a barrage of bullets.

Miraculously, their aim hit home. Though they didn't hear their bullets collide with Metal Sonic's body, they knew that had succeeded in freeing their squad leader. Unfortunately, they had forgotten about the inevitable landing, as their leader fell back towards the ground. It was by sheer luck that the leader managed to survive, but the pain he felt as his left leg hit the ground first might well have made death a more comfortable approach.

As he screamed and writhed in pain, clutching his broken leg, the red-headed guard rushed to his side, ignoring the shouts and cries of 'Hurry the fuck up!' As he reached his side, the red head hesitated, not knowing what to do. His leader looked up from the floor and barked, "Help me up on my good leg, now!"

While the red head slowly began to lift his leader onto his right leg, slinging his leader's arm around his neck to support his leader, the guard who had screamed, under the overwhelming power of his fright, spun on the spot so he could rush to the locked door... only to find the Tails Doll standing right in front of him.

As the guard began to scream again, the masked man threw his gripped fist towards the guard's stomach. But by sheer luck, the HGO body armour that the guard had been wearing seemed strong enough to stop the Tails Doll's attack. However, as the guard stumbled backwards from the force of the attack, the body armour, with a giant dent set into it, managed to slip off and fall uselessly to the floor.

As the screaming guard moved into the centre of the main room, the other three guards (the twins and the green eyed man) instinctively raised their weapons and took aim at the Tails Doll. But before the three guards could start to fire, the Tails Doll, after quickly recovering from his failed attack, quickly spun on the spot, causing the tail end of his trench coat to flash in front of the guards' eyes. While the guards were stunned, the trench-coated man, half way during his spin, managed to pull out his axe from within his trench-coat. As his spin came full circle, the Tails Doll, with his axe ready in his hand, managed to brush the axe's steel edge against the exposed throats of the twins.

As the life began to gush from their gullets, the Tails Doll continued to spin on the spot with the speed and momentum he had already gathered. Grabbing the axe's handle with both of his gloved hands, the masked man raised his weapon into the air. At the end of his final spin, the Tails Doll brought the axe down upon the green-eyed guard with all the strength he had. And like a knife cutting through butter, his axe sliced through the guard's skull, slicing it perfectly in two in a fountain of blood, brains and gore. The axe then continued downwards, only stopping when the wooden handle met the edge of the dead guard's body armour. Ignoring the blood that was seeping onto the dried blood stains of his coat and axe, the Tails Doll casually kicked the decapitated guard off the edge of his axe and onto the floor.

As the red-headed guard watched his comrades being torn apart in front of him, he didn't notice the green flash that had emitted from his squad leader's eyes, which somehow managed to shed light upon the body that was hanging from the cables up above. Suddenly, to the red head's surprise, the leader's leg straightened and he arched his back towards the red head's chest.

Nothing could have prepared the guard for the pain he soon felt. For, without warning, blue spikes spouted out of the 'leader's' back, piercing the red-headed guard's body armour until they impaled the surface of his skin. As a trickle of blood started to paint the inside of the body armour, Metal Sonic threw off his entire disguise. The red-skinned guard, who was gasping in pain, didn't notice that the cyborg's back thrusters were starting to ignite, not until they roared, setting the red head aflame. Even though the guard was screaming as the fire began to burn and char his skin, his voice was never heard as it was taken by the Sound Dampening device, robbing the guard of his final screams or his final words, which no one would ever know.

As Metal Sonic retracted his back spikes, allowing the burnt corpse to fall to the floor, the last guard, who was still in the middle of the main room, finally found the sense to try and fight back, even though it was a pointless effort. As he aimed at the cyborg, his hands trembling uncontrollably, Metal Sonic calmly yet quickly grabbed the front edge of his hat. With no obvious effort, the cyborg threw his hat towards the final guard, which was now spinning through the air like a frisbee.

As the hat was about to collide with the scared guard's face, Metal Sonic fired up his silent thrusters and sped towards the guard at tremendous speed. Before the guard could react, Metal Sonic managed to slip in behind him, grab his own hat from the air with both hands and pulled it down onto the guard's face. Though he struggled, the guard could not stop the cyborg from pulling his head back, the hat still muzzling his entire head. But just as the air left his lungs, Metal Sonic sharply wrung the guard's neck with his hat. After letting the guard drop to the floor, his broken neck smashing against the ground, Metal Sonic twirled his hat with his hand before stylishly placing it back where it belonged.

As the blood began to dry on the floor and on the warm bodies that were losing their heat, Metal Sonic turned to Adam, his neon eyes glaring at the AI who was looking broken and defeated. The cyborg was about to take a step towards Mecha, to do the job he had come to do, before a gloved fist slammed into the side of his metallic head. Due to the Sound Dampener, Metal Sonic made no sound as he slammed into the wall, the device hiding the sickening crunch of metal upon metal.

As the Tails Doll watched his hated foe, his back-stabbing comrade slide down against the wall, he considered finishing off the weapon of Eggman first, to extract revenge for killing him and countless others. But since revenge was best served cold, he decided to let Metal Sonic simmer while he got the information from Adam.

He turned away from the cyborg, and as he did, he heard Adam mutter humourlessly, "At least Eggman won't be able to cover up his associates, not now anyway..." The AI, who seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion, looked into the Tails Doll's buttoned eyes with, not fear, but with dismal, bitter acceptance. When he spoke, he began to slowly walk to the railing that fenced off the dark chasm. He spoke with a dead, resigned tone that was not robotic, but dark and emotionless all the same.

"If you want to know who else was involved with the attack on the cemetery, then fine..." Adam, once reaching the railing, turned to face the Tails Doll, who was slowly striding towards the AI, a knife primed in his hand. Adam waved his hand dismissively, whilst muttering, "Don't bother. I'll be gone soon enough." The masked man didn't stop his approach, not until he saw how Adam deliberately leaned his back over the edge of the railing, his only life line being a set of feet that look like they were ready to push against the ground. Understanding, somehow, what Adam was going to do, the Tails Doll stopped in his tracks, his knife disappearing back up his sleeve.

Not moving from his position, the AI looked up at the darkened ceiling and began to count off the names of the conspirators, not with an organised tone, but the kind of voice you'd hear from a youngster as he flicked through a check list. "Eggman, of course, Whiskers, me, Lume, all of which you already knew; Erazor Djinn, the head librarian, he fired and silenced all of the cemetery workers before the attack started. Achaz Oxford, a merchant from New Town, he allowed his warehouses to be used for storing robots."

Even though the Tails Doll didn't physically respond to the names being read out, his memory reacted to them all, some with anger and one with sorrow, but the last two didn't come as a surprise. Erazor, a purple skinned half mutant, was known for many things, one of them being a shadow voodooist. Though the claim had never been proven, every member of the Cult of Argus knew that Erazor dabbled in the darker side of their religion. It was funny that Achaz was the polar opposite to the librarian. A human purist, a member of the Church of Solaris, the only similar they shared was their piggish behaviour. Why Achaz was attacking his own Church was confusing, but the masked man guessed that money was involved, something that most Solaris believers loved more than their own 'god'.

Adam, who was now grabbing the rail, like he was ready to push himself off the ground, continued his drawl, "There was also Darken and Marsali." If Adam had been looking at the Tails Doll, he would have seen a gloved hand ball into a fist. "Don't know why they helped out, but it was probably on the orders of their leader." As if he could sense the Tails Doll's surprise and curiosity, Adam quickly added, "No, I don't know their leaders name. I don't even know if he's a man or a woman." And as an afterthought, the AI then shrugged, "Oh, Julius the Hedgehog got recruited after you killed Lume. He's buying the land as we speak."

The trench-coated man didn't have time to process any feelings on that revelation, before Adam finally looked down at the Tails Doll, his face wide with a smirk. "Tell me, Amadeus, even though you're a zombie, you still have emotions. You're pissed at Weapon 0001 because he killed you. You're pissed at me for being part of the group that dug out your wife's grave, and, if my sources are correct, you got really pissed off when your son was beaten to a pulp."

He tilted his head to the side slightly; watching the light from the computer (which was starting to fade a bit) cast a shadow on the Tails Doll, who in turn spawned a shadow that was almost lost in the darkness of the room. "According to my database," he continued, "Argus belief states that souls are represented by a person's shadow, if they have one. The absence of a shadow means they have lost their soul or never had one to begin with."

"So if that's the case..." The AI slowly tilted his head down and—there—cast by the flickering flames that spiked the top of the Adam's giant robot's column was a faint shadow, which seemed to be a shade lighter than usual. "...Considering this and these emotions I have been feeling... Have I grown a soul?" His eyes, for a fraction of a second, seemed to sparkle, break through the wood-like layer with a glint of, to Adam's dismay, hope...

But then the smirk was back, his eyes now alive with malice, true malice. "Let's test it, shall we?" Adam then hoisted himself onto the railing, his hands the only thing that stopped him from falling to his doom. "If I'm right that I have a soul," he chuckled at the trench-coated man, "then I'll send your regards to your whore-wife, Rosemary, when I see her in the Cage!" And before the Tails Doll could punish the AI for his slander, Adam let go of the railings and tipped backwards. With his eyes closed, one last smirk on his face, Mecha fell down into the pitch black chasm—to nothingness or to Hell...

The Tails Doll, as he looked over that railing where Adam had just been leaning against, didn't know if he should feel angry or satisfied. Including the AI's final remark to one of his sorely missed people, choosing his own death, his own destruction didn't make this feel like punishment, retribution. But on the other hand, the masked man had the hope that the AI would never reach the afterlife, that his claims that he had 'grown a soul' were just the bizarre miscalculations of a faulty wire or a loose circuit-board.

But his mind was soon brimming with anger, momentarily forgetting everything he had learnt or felt from Adam, as he turned around to discover that Metal Sonic was gone. Seeing that the traitorous tool of Eggman had managed to sneak away through the hidden door, which was wide open, the Tails Doll felt like he had been cheated twice. First he had allowed Mecha to choose his demise, to escape punishment, and now his thirst for revenge had crawled away back to his master.

His fury now at breaking point, the Tails Doll's buttoned eyes suddenly aimed at the dark-skinned guard, who was still cowering against the wall, his mind shattered by fear. For a split second, the Tails Doll began to reach into his coat for his axe. Even though this man had not acted on bigotry thoughts, which the trench-coated man discovered when he listened in the shadows awhile before, he'd still brought an unjust end on an innocent mutant. It was irrelevant if the boy had been seen contacting Darken, the guard needed to pay for his crime, the Tails Doll needed vengeance...

And that was why the masked man froze, his fingers an inch away from the linings of his trench-coat. _What the hell is wrong with me? _thought the Tails Doll, _I shouldn't be killing people blindly with my rage, not like how I killed Lume. Even though this cockroach ganged up on that boy, his reason was because the boy was contacting Darken, which is shady in itself. If so, then it'd be better if I made sure Zackary and Welshscot talk to this guy so they can get information on Darken, and hopefully Marsali. _

_Still_, thought the trench-coated man, as he walked towards the broken guard. _He deserves a bloody good scare if anything else. Welshscot will fix his wits later._

The dark skinned guard, as he shivered against the wall, clutching his legs and praying to Argus and Emil like a mad man, didn't notice the Tails Doll's approach until a bright, bloody light shined above him. Snapping his head upwards, his petrified and disoriented eyes gazed at the glowing jewel that rested a top the masked man's antenna, who was slowly bending down to the guard's eye level.

The dark-skinned guard didn't have time to splutter or plead, before the Tails Doll's blood stained knife slid from his sleeve into his hand. The knife's crimson-tipped edge was soon pressed against the guard's chin, the blade positioned in such a way that if it began its journey upwards the guard's face would be split right down the middle. It was harder to say if the guard's gargling sounds were beating faster than his heart, as the Tails Doll began to slowly and teasingly press the knife against the dark skin.

Then, right before the blade began to draw blood; the masked man flipped the knife in his hand, pressed it against his own chin and brought it upwards. This took all of his strength, physical and mental, to slash open the demented mask that he called a face, which would soon fix as unnaturally as his strength. But in those few seconds, the dark-skinned guards saw a sight the chilled him to his core, a sight that made time itself freeze, making those single seconds feel like an entirety. And the guard screamed. And as he screamed, his horrified voice echoed through the darkened corridors and into the dark skyline of the night, one sentence was heard by all who were near:

_Can you feel the sunshine?_


	28. Something Like Fire

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Exploder**, **HalfWright**, **Undead009**, **Fanfic412**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **The Guy in the Background**, **LordCooler**,**SmallSpeckles**, **insidious fanboy**, **superechidna** and **TrueFlint** for reviewing the last chapters.

_Fanfic412- _Hey, no problem! As long as you're reviewing, I'm pretty happy.

_SmallSpeckles- _Haha, I absolutely love reading your reviews. :) They're so random and filled with chocolate pudding half the time. Yes. Caleb is not a very logical person when he's being stupid or on his period.

_insidious fanboy- _Man, I absolutely love you.

Heartnet: "Fuck no! Not _again!_... Ever since I participated in that interview people have been stealing my hats." *cries*

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over. ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Twenty Eight  
>.<em>  
>"Sometimes they say this should feel something like fire, 'til it burns you and you can't, no, you can't remain the same. Stay the same, stay the same, stay the same. I can't change."<br>…_  
>Swallow The Knife <em>by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>It had been fifteen minutes and Wave still couldn't locate where the aloe vera was. She had only examined <em>one<em> of these bloody mountains as well! How was she going to locate what could be a _tiny_ shipment of aloe vera in this-this _maze! _Each of the boxes looked the same, different sizes and shapes, with different writing and stamps scrawled against the brown exterior, but they still mostly looked the same. She had a pocket knife she had retrieved from her backpack and was slashing at the boxes relentlessly, fire blazing in her eyes as she desperately tried to find their salvation.

Storm had never been knocked out from a simple bullet before. It took a lot more to bring Storm down. He had always been this impenetrable wall of reliance for the both of them, considering that Wave was physically weaker than both Jet and Storm, and how it didn't take a lot of bullets to bring Jet down. He had never been rendered helpless in a fight before, leaving Wave and Jet to fend for themselves unless they had been completing solo missions.

_Just like finding a needle in a mother fucking haystack._

Storm was still draped over his Gear-bike, parked at the base of one of the giant stacks she had been examining, his body unmoving, "Hey, have you guys found anything?" her voice was desperate, cracking with stress as she rummaged through her pile, splitting open boxes with absolutely no regard for what was inside. Tomorrow someone would find themselves with a whole lot of torn up Adabat silks. If they hadn't been packaged like they were, then they wouldn't have to rip every single one of them open.

_"Fuck I- Shit, no,"_ said Jet. He sounded just as aggravated as she was. It might not have looked like it, but Jet relied on Storm just as much as Storm relied on Jet.

_"Nothing here- dammit!" _Heartnet swore. She supposed he was having trouble shovelling through the content with the way his hand was bloodied and cut like that.

_Oh shit! BLOOD!_

Heartnet wasn't wearing any gloves! That was bad. What if the police found his DNA after they'd searched the place? Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!

"Snippy, have you bandaged up your hand?" she asked, opening up another box only to find a bunch of books she didn't care about. On a regular day, she would have like to leisurely look through the stuff that she was finding, but there was no time at this moment.

_"As best I could…" _he sighed, _"I really liked this shirt."_

All she heard was static for a few more minutes until she heard another screech. It was Jet, _"I think I-! FUCK! No, it's not aloe… it's just a whole tankard of wine." _Even if they were currently hundreds of meters apart, she could still hear the sound of a wine bottle being thrown to the floor, smashing and splashing… and then a gagging sound on the communicators. She felt a knot in her neck, a pulse in her skull, born of the irritation she felt at the moment. She might not have been taking this mission seriously before, but watching Storm's limp body had completely changed her indifference towards this mission.

_"Shit! Stop it, Jet! I can smell that nasty crap from here! It probably wasn't preserved right,"_ she heard the brown fox complain. In any normal situation, she would have laughed at the teenager's comical tone, rising an octave higher than his usual pitch.

_"How the hell can you do that?" _Jet asked sarcastically, _"You're on the other side of the fucking warehouse!"_

It was then that an answer, plain as day, jumped right in front of her. It may not have been aloe vera, but it was a possible means to find it faster. Caleb was a _fox! _Canine's had an advanced sense of _smell! _Maybe his senses were strong enough to locate the aloe! They could only hope, or they weren't getting out of this place without handcuffs linking them together.

"Caleb, do you think you could sniff out the aloe?" she asked, getting desperate there obviously. Relationship dynamic always changed with the situation became dyer.

_"Not if Jettison keeps throwing WINE BOTTLES around!" _Of course, leave it to someone like Heartnet to joke about their predicament.

_"I'm SORRY for hurting your delicate little nose!" _Leave it to someone like Jet to retaliate to such a childish remark.

_"See if you can repeat that when I'm **breaking** your beak!"_

"Guys! Stop it!" she ordered, finding another failure, taking out her anger by stabbing the box she had just found with her pocket knife, "Heartnet, move around the warehouse instead and see if you can locate the aloe using smell."

_"Knowing our luck, it's probably under Jet, and I won't be able to find it because there's wine everywhere. Solaris, my nose feels like it's gonna fall off," _he whined. Wave rolled her eyes when she heard the slight chuckle from Jet's communicator. They continued burying through the rubble, the purple swallow occasionally glancing back at the albatross hanging from his own bike. Shivers ran up her spine, she could still hear the faint sounds of Storm's breathing into the microphone. He was still alive.

She'd thought they had at least ten more minutes left, but apparently that was too much to hope for, as the flashing red lights and a shrieking alarm started going off, bathing the entire warehouse in a crimson glow, "Fuck."

_"You've got that right. I can't find anything…" _Jet snarled. Another smash could be heard in the distance. She could barely hear the echo of the glass with the blaring ring of the siren in her ears. This was where they would normally bail the mission, but then she thought of the impossibility with Storm in the state that he was in.

_"I told you not to do that," _Caleb complained, soon trailing off, _"Baker, Basette, Batch …"_

"What the hell are you saying?" she asked irritatingly, moving onto the next mountain-load of stock.

_"I'm reading out the names of the orders," _he replied snippily, making a slightly disgruntled sound on the other end.

"Wait a second," it took her genius brain a few seconds to process this information, "they're in _alphabetical order?_"

"_Really?" _Jet screeched, hearing the protest from Heartnet. She winced at the way his voice sounded like grating chalk at the moment. They already had to speak louder than before because of the sirens, this was even worst, _"Go find Whiskers then!"_

_"Are you an idiot?" _Heartnet asked, no doubt one of the stupidest questions ever.

_Of course Jet is an idiot, _she thought.

_"Do you think cocaine smugglers put 'cocaine' on the box? Whiskers probably didn't put his real name, or the real content."_

She slammed her head into the nearest box, ice running down her spine when she realised that she hadn't heard Storm breathing in over a minute. _Oh no, _she thought. She rummaged faster, eyes flickering over to Storm. Her heart sank when she saw guards swarming in from the door that they had opened, "Guys, we've got company."

_"Fuck. We've gone past our limit-! We've got to evacuate before-"_ Jet said, when he was interrupted with a message that gave Wave more hope.

_"I'VE CAUGHT THE SCENT! Hurry your asses over to the stack under the giant window!"_

Wave slipped and slid down the boxes, hopping from one to another before she landed painfully next to the bike, ignoring the ache lancing through her arms, she quickly felt for Storm's pulse. When she didn't feel it, she swore under her breath and got some dynamite out of the glove compartment, hitting the thrusters to reach the other side of The Warehouse.

She found Jet fighting off some more guards; she gave him a signal which he barely caught sight off before jumping back a few meters and allowing her to throw the dynamite. It was a sparking mess as the tubes arched through the air and hit home right in the middle of the guards, blasting them apart and into unconsciousness. She parked Storm's bike into the crag between two the towers so that the guards would have to get through them first to get to Storm, and protected Caleb as he shovelled through the content of the pyramid, trying to find the aloe.

"Shit, my hand-"

Wave whirled around, trying to see what the problem was; Caleb was leaving blood all over the packaging. She ripped off her right glove and threw it at him, "Use this! We'll take whatever you've left blood on with us!" After snapping on the item, he paused for a second, maybe wondering if he should help them with the abundance of guards. She snarled at him, and moved to backhand a guard, stepping on his tail and kneeing him in the gut with her other leg, "Go on! _Fetch!_"

He scoffed irritatingly, "That is such a derogatory term…"

"HURRY UP!" Jet demanded, pulling the electronic gun to a man's head, and when he backed off, he performed a swift roundhouse kick, sending him into three more guards. She defended herself against another strike with her forearm, slipping under the guards hold and taking the guards wrist, stepping on his foot and tugging the hand down so that his wrist dislocated with a sickening pop. The guard fell forward with a cry of agony, but she noticed that it took a lot more effort to manoeuvre the bone.

_My Methel Alewah is getting rusty_, she thought, deciding to test this theory by curling her fingers and jutting out her arm to hit the base of another guard's throat. He was thrown back for a few seconds before he started to choke on his own breath, his sinuses and wind pipe having closes momentarily. She didn't really care, but she had noticed the lapse in the guard's reaction, meaning her fighting style _was_ getting rusty. She would need more practice after this heist.

She proceeded to evaluate her skills with the next three guards, trying to disarm and disable as quick as she possibly could. Breaking bones. Blinding them. She wasn't above using dirty tricks to make sure she got what she wanted.

"How are you doing?" she yelled back at Caleb, who was further within the rubble now. She stopped another guard from advancing by tripping up a guard and amply ample enough pressure to his calf, hitting the nerve cells so that his whole right leg was paralysed. She took out a lighter and another stick of dynamite from her pocket, lighting it and motioning for Jet to get back again while she threw it. This time, the bang caused so much smoke that the fire alarm went off, and within seconds, they were drenched.

"Dammit! Why did you do that?" Caleb growled. "This water drowns out the scent!"

"Sorry!" she said it earnestly this time, hoping against hope that the fox was close enough to locate the boxes manually. She looked back at Storm, noticing that he had fallen of his bike. She was about to run to the unconscious albatross when a new guard grabbed hold of her arm.

_Shit._

"Purty bird like you shouldn't be stealing," the guard whispered in her ear, their eyes locking under the hood before he grabbed her forearm and-

_Snap._

It didn't really hit her until she saw the way that her arm bent, and then she released the loudest scream _anyone _had heard that night. For a second her whole body was nothing but ache and hurt and fire lancing through her arm as she replayed the sound of her bone breaking over and over again.

"Wave!"

She was on the ground blinking back tears as a flurry of green swooped into defend her. The black of the guards uniforms were starting to overwhelm them, splashing loudly in the flooding floors of the warehouse. Her feathers were soaked, and she was in _so much pain._ Another shudder struck her like lightning when one of the gun-shots actually _hit_ Jet and he crumpled to the ground as well, the water mixing with his blood.

The pain was starting to clear now, and she started to regain movement in her body when a hand gripped her from behind. She was almost certain she was going to be knocked out when she felt the texture of the hand, recognising the leather of her own black glove, "This is gonna taste acrid, but buck up, 'kay?" That was what she heard before liquid was forced into her beak. The solution was foul-tasting and chilling, refreshing and gross at the same time, but in seconds she felt re-energised and the pain in her arm was dulled to a small aching sensation as she surged forward and performed a roundhouse kick that knocked three guards into seven more.

Caleb administered the mixture to Jet next, waiting for the hawk to regain his strength. They waited for three brief seconds before the leader of the Babylon Rogues raised his head and screeched so loudly that the reverberation of sound bounced of the walls. She watched in awe as a gush of wind so fierce left Jet's fingertips, sending the guards as far back as thirty meters.

_I haven't seen Jet use his power over air in a while._

After the echoes stopped, Caleb removed his hands from his ears and tore the backpack from Jet's shoulders, moving back to fill it with aloe vera bottles. She was still trying to rinse the taste of the stuff from her mouth with the water from the ceiling when Storm joined the fray. She had never been so relieved, "Hey!"

"Hi!" he replied, knocking three more men away from her as they continued to bide their time, "Sorry fer bein' out ah commission."

"I'm so glad you're alright," she laughed before snatching one of the guard's guns and aiming it at them. This caused three of them to back out of point-blank range. Caleb popped out of absolutely nowhere and tugged the backpack off Storm's shoulders, shoving the filled one in his hands and returning to grab more bottles. The albatross swung it on with ease, using his giant fists to hold seven people back.

"Actually, the bullet is still in my shoulder, but that miracle drink really numbed it down!" he said happily as he picked up one of the humans, and effortlessly threw him into the crowd as if they were bowling pins. She was always in awe of his strength. Caleb made another appearance before them, forcing his filled backpack on her and grabbing the empty one she was in possession off. It weighed a lot more than she thought it would have, but there was only one more to go, so she grinned and bore it, using her last reserves of dynamite to blast them out of range as the fox reappeared and stopped her from running.

"I need your lighter," he requested, holding out his hand. She saw in his other hand that he was holding a bottle of liquor, probably from the place Jet had been throwing them from. She looked in the distance and now saw that Jet was fighting with a backpack. She shoved her hands into her pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it with a quick hand and ran back to the stack of boxes. She waited a few careful seconds before she could see the flickering of orange tongues and red ribbons in the water at her feet, stronger even than the water cascading from the ceiling. This was when she motioned for all of them to follow her out.

It was no tricky feat, bouncing off the walls when she could and taking down the guards in her path, dodging bullets. If all of them were moving at her speed they would be out of there in no time. She held her Extreme Gear in its compact state, swinging it around like some deranged business woman with a heavy briefcase when a guard got too close. As soon as the exit was in sight she jumped on the shoulders of the last guard and cartwheeled off him, throwing down her Gear and changing it into a board, hopping on it and taking a glance back at her team. Jet was already on his gear, it was Storm at Caleb having problems.

Caleb did not bring his own gear, he didn't own one, didn't steal one from Black Arms, and therefor was now dead weight. They were still doing a pretty efficient job, Storm hopping onto his bike gear and Caleb hopping on behind him, facing the rear end of the cycle and cocking the safety on one of Storm's guns, aiming it at the mob of guards still after them, "Remember to meet up with Orbot!" he said, over the sound of him shooting away at a guard that had come too close, nailing him right in the knee. He toppled, sending five men behind him toppling too.

"The meeting place is over there!" Jet said, pointing to the place where they had met before, the small wharf that he had been waiting for Caleb and Wave, now empty of all people and surrounded with closed shops.

"We can't go there! We're dripping wet, we'll leave a trail!" she thought about this for a second before raising her hand in a gesture for all of them to follow. She made a hard bank right and increased the power of the southern puffer jets, toppling over the edge of the docks. But before she could hit the water, her impact was cushioned by a cloud of air. She heard the water parting behind her, meaning that Jet, Storm and Caleb were right behind them.

_Now that we're on the water, we can give ourselves a few seconds to dry before- Oh shit._

There was an Egg Patrol following them, ready to open fire. She thought of all that they could do right now to… wait a second. An idea popped into her head, she looked over her shoulder at Jet, whose electronic gun was in his hands right now. There were about seven in the patrol, "Jet! I'm going to make wake, shoot 'em down!"

"Roger!" he said, as she hit the thrusters. The force of her speed caused the water behind her to part; making sufficient curved surfaces for Jet to perform decent flip tricks on. She watched in awe as Jet twirled twice in the air, gun blazing as he did so and taking out three off the robots following them. She noticed that she had stopped dripping already, but they couldn't possibly head to the meeting place with five robots on their trail. She thought it over for a second before trying to shoot at them herself, performing a quick turn and taking out one more robots, watching as it plummeted into the ocean like a falling star.

They were about to take out the last three before Caleb spied something in the distance, "Guys, there are more coming this way. We have to get rid of the last ones or hide before- Crap! Storm! Just give me your gun! Jet, move to the meeting place!"

She couldn't help looking back as Caleb released three successive shots, the robots falling out of the sky like dead flies. She was amazed though, those robots had been over three hundred meters away! "Damn, Heartnet, where did you learn to do that?"

He chuckled nervously as Jet started to steer them into the meeting place, the same wharf that the hawk had been at sunset, "You don't study at a GUN Academy without learning ta handle a gun… 20-20 eye sight and night vision helps too."

"Bein' a dog is soundin' pretty nice righ' now," Storm commented before they banked for the wharf.

Wave and Storm making sure to hide in an alleyway as Jet and Caleb completed their quick exchange. Well, Jet and Caleb were obviously trying to hurry the transaction up, but MarDean was hell bent on asking question.

"Well, it smells like the same stuff, but how do I know it is?"

"Would _you_ like to taste it?" 'Gabe' replied snippily. She remembered 'Gabe', it was the first name that came to his head when he was trying to make up a fake identity for himself, it was the name he had used to fool MarDean initially. Wave wondered for a second why a shortened version of 'Gabriel', an archangel of all things, would be Caleb's first choice in shady thug names. She might have to ask him later. "Listen, Sport. This stuff doesn't come cheap or easily. You want a sure-fire way to kill mutants; you've got the answer right here. Now do you want it or not?"

"If this is the fake stuff, I'll find you."

"I can assure you," Jet declared, "it isn't. I'm not going to lie to you; this stuff is a lot more valuable than the price we're giving it to ya for."

"We can prove it by selling it in The Black Market, but then you would have already lost your chance as first preference and you'd have to pay the street value, just like anyone else." Jet said, and Wave was surprised to realise how convincing their thug role play was, after all, what they were saying was a mix of fiction and truth, but their faces were giving off the right emotions to put MarDean on the right track, in their case anyway.

"Why did you even come to me, Gabe?"

"You know the dork that goes to the high school near Megalo Station? Silver?" Wave grinned at the way Caleb's eyes rolled.

"Yeah," MarDean snarled in disgust. "What about 'im?"

"I hate 'is guts, and heard you do too."

That was the selling line.

They quickly got onto their Gears again, this time Storm was in the front so that Caleb could tell them the quickest way to get to Mystic Ruins. They were streaking through Castle Town by the time the second platoon caught up to them. It was hectic because Storm was yelling out instructions to Caleb, who was looking around the compartments and trying to locate more firearms. Caleb was the only one who could shoot because he wasn't driving a Gear, but they were having intense difficulty navigating the way without his guidance.

She watched the fox fire two more shots before turning around and screaming, "Left! Head towards the huge building with the crap-load of pilla-_damn _that was fast, turn right!" Wave raised her Robot Neutraliser Gun and saw the reflection of the flying Egg platoon in the shiny metallic surface, but she couldn't do it for long because the good hand was the one she was using to steer her Gear.

Caleb managed to take down two more of the flying robots before they reached the edge of Castle Town, hurtling past The Casino Nights district and getting lost in the overwhelming crowd of people and Egg Pawns swarming around- what Wave assumed- was The Iron Domain Whore House. They hid their guns in their jackets as they swerved through as fast as possible, ignoring the cocked machine guns aimed for them when a stray Egg Pawn caught sight of them and their use of Extreme Gear in the middle of a well lit district. Their risky little detour proved effective though, because the patrol following them lost sight of their Gear in the rush and they travelled through to Mystic Ruins with complete and total ease.

* * *

><p><em>Fire <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>They crashed at the doors to The Garden Centre, just shy of alerting the patrols. The aloe vera was staring to lose effect and the pain was increasing with every second they waited. Caleb was the one that ran up and knocked on the door, continuously to try to get their attentions. Fina answered the door, looking over them once, before moving to grab Storm's gear and haul them inside. Caleb helped to move Wave's and once hers was inside, he moved outside to collect Jet's because he was the only one that wasn't severely injured. Both boys were suffering from bullet wounds and Wave had a broken arm, they'd only taken a sip of aloe vera, meaning it only had a really small effect.<p>

A pink echidna, an orange one clad in black armour and some weird robot with bug eyes came over to hoist their gears, while Caleb motioned for them to follow the red-haired woman further into The Garden Centre.

_Well, that's awesome because I am sure as hell not navigating this fucking maze by myself, _her thoughts were getting snarky. It was hard to tell if it was the pain or the irritation speaking. The pink echidna relieved Storm and Jet of their backpacks while Caleb took hers away. They navigated the familiar halls; her arm burning and stinging like a bitch now, _This must've been how Shorty felt when he'd dislocated his elbow._

The lights to The Sickbay were on when they stumbled through, Cal moving to an empty cot to take out three bottles of the aloe, asking the pink echidna for a measuring cup and a weighing device. Wave collapsed onto the cot next to Prower, who looked like he'd just woken up. When he realised what was happening, his big blue eyes widened and he asked in a surprised tone, "What the hell happened?"

She snarled at him, "I was expecting a fucking 'Thank you', Prower, after breaking my bloody arm over this shit."

"I didn't ask you to!" he replied defiantly, another hippie-looking orange echidna rushing over to him when he started coughing and hacking up blood. The pink echidna came rushing back in with the gizoid and three measuring devices; one of them was a blender.

He asked for a calculator next, _Oh, I get it. He's going to be doing what he did with Prower. _She started doing the calculations in her head for her own dosage, "Snippy, it's six for me, eight for Jet and twenty for Storm."

Caleb sighed in relief, "Thanks, I'm horrible with math."

"You might wanna give 'em to Storm first, that fucking bullet is the reason we had to rush so badly."

Tails' head jerked in Storm's direction, "You were shot?"

The albatross nodded, "Boss too."

She saw Tails' eyebrows knit together, a little annoyed that she wasn't getting any sympathy either. She thought that mentioning her broken arm would make her look needy and pathetic though, "And give it to me after you take it out, will you? I need to find out what the hell is in it."

She watched with interest as Tikal started to administer the aloe vera to Storm's arm, eyes widening in amazement when his flesh started to _knit_ itself together. The bullet popped out like some candy out of a gumball machine, falling onto a petri dish that Tikal held against the bird's skin. Caleb took it from her and placed it by the table in between her bed and Tails' before getting out the necessary amount of bottles to administer it to Storm, "You guys are lucky you've got a race in two weeks, or I wouldn't be doing this."

"Save your delightful compliments for after we heal, Heartnet. All you got away with was a bloody hand," said Wave.

"That's his girlfriend," Jet murmured. "That's why it's so important."

Caleb narrowed his eyes, but the corner of his lips twitched up in a smirk, "You're such a dick… and wouldn't that be a little painful?"

It only took a second for Wave to figure it out and roll her eyes, "You two are disgusting."

It took a few more seconds for Jet to start laughing so loud that it echoed of the walls. Storm joined in the laughter nervously, prompting Wave to assume he didn't know what either of the boys was talking about. Tails merely stared at them with a confused look on his face. Poor, innocent, naïve little boy.

"But seriously, my hand stings like a bitch now thanks to all the salt water you were throwing about. Can I have a pair of tweezers or something? There's still glass in there."

On a normal occasion, she would look at the state of Caleb's hand, all bloodied up and stinging, and feel sorry for him. He winced as he took off the gloves, seeing that whatever shards of glass were still there, were embedded even further into his skin. But she was staring at this with a broken arm, and thus didn't feel the empathy a normal person would have. She decided she would rather wallow in her own self pity. But then again… Heartnet was refusing to use aloe vera, which would make the entire situation harder on him.

_What an idiot._

The pink echidna started to administer the swallow's dosage, and Wave used her good arm to reach into her pocket and check the time. It was three o'clock, meaning they'd spent seven hours on the heist. She sighed after the effects of the aloe started to thrum through her body, reaching with her good hand for the remote, turning it on to see what the news made of their little 'acquirement'.

* * *

><p><strong>Extra scene;~<strong>

_Someday At Christmas (Cover) _by Mary J. Blige

"What is up with this place?" Jet asked, two days in the recovery process. "You guys are like, two days away from Christmas and the only thing anyone festive around here is those New City jackasses putting up a few decorated trees in the courts and the parks."

Tails sighed sadly. Wave inclined her head. He was hoping that he wouldn't have to be the ones explaining it to them, "Christmas, or whatever people celebrate at this time of the year… it's just not a big deal anymore."

"Why?" Wave asked, eyes going wide, "We've been travelling for years and every single place we've been to is into holiday cheer_way_ before this."

"You guys know of the Crimson Night, don't you? It happened four years ago," Tails said. He wished Storm was here, but the bird had already healed thanks to taking extra doses of aloe. He would be mildly reasonable. Both of them nodded, "Not many people know- and I only do because I'm friends with Sonic-" he winced, "-and he's a former member of The Freedom Fighters- that the apex of The Crimson Night was a huge explosion in what was once Eggman's most prized laboratory."

"What does that have to do with it?" Jet asked.

"That explosion killed thousands of people! It was the equivalent to a bombing. People went _insane_ after it. There wasn't enough room in the hospitals or the psychiatric wards to handle it." Both of the birds looked at him, shocked. "What Eggman doesn't want us to know, is that whatever broke into his laboratory was so shocking and scary that he never showed his face in public again. This was all during Christmas time.

Now the citizens of Soleanna just aren't in the mood, or the financial security to deal with holiday cheer. They're afraid of getting each other presents because, what if whomever you give the present to, they don't have one in return, and then they'll feel resentful towards you? In some cases it's the same with birthdays; do you know that Caleb's birthday was only a week ago?"

"Really?" Jet and Wave said, surprised.

"Yeah, but residents of Crisis City don't have the time, patience or money for these special events any more. He still woke up, went to work, and when I wished him a Happy Birthday, he said 'What? Oh yeah'. See? That's a common reaction. I did the same thing."

"That is _so _depressing," Jet said.

"I'd say that Amy is the most resilient out of all of us. She loved Christmas, and at least still cooks up a holiday feast and hands out candy canes. She used to put up a tree but Shadow got extremely angry at her and knocked it down. She doesn't do it anymore."

"Bastard."

"Actually, I can understand where the both of them are coming from, but yeah, Shadow was a little harsh. He apologised and put the tree back up, but I have a feeling Amy's afraid to put it up again. He accepts her candy canes though."

"So you guys don't celebrate the holidays anymore?" Jet asked sadly.

"There's no such thing as a Crisis City Christmas."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>The extra scene was supposed to be closer to Christmas, but shit happens and I couldn't get it out. That's the explanation as to why they're not being particularly festive.

REVIEW!~

**ღ**


	29. Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Exploder**, **insidious fanboy**, **I CAN'T FUCKING LOGIN S.S**, **LordCooler** and **Yuke Navy Pilot** for reviewing the last chapters.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>The chains that bind us most closely are the ones we have broken. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin<em>

**Anthem of Our Dying Day  
><strong>.  
><em>Chapter Twenty Nine<br>_.  
>"Some of them want to use you. Someone of them want to be used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. Someone of them want to be abused."<br>…_  
>Undisclosed Desires <em>by Muse

* * *

><p>He bunched up the thin blanket of the hospital bed with a completely healed hand, focusing on the flexing muscles and the abrupt tightness in his wrists. His entire body was almost finished restoring itself. It was a complete understatement to say that Tails was happy, he was <em>ecstatic<em> to be leaving the familiar scenery of The Mystic Ruin's Sickbay. That wasn't to say that he didn't enjoy this place and the people inside it, just that he was eager to get home and sleep in his own bed, not to mention a different room than the other Babylon Rogues.

Since they had refused to admit the entire ten percent body weight of aloe vera to their systems, their healing time had been lengthened. There wasn't much time in the day when you would find peaceful moments between the Rogues unless they were all asleep. Storm had left a day before the other two, but he wasn't nearly as argument-prone as his team mates.

Caleb, Silver and Marine had also been dropping in. Caleb normally needed to find WelshScot (who he hadn't been able to locate for a day or two), and when he wasn't he was hanging out in The Sickbay or in The Lounge Room trying to organise what was going to happen to the aloe shipment. He really adored some paintings that were displayed there, so that's where he spoke with Tikal over the value of the small little green bottles. Metal Knuckles explained that most of them were painted by a wonderful artist called Selina.

Silver dropped food off for them, normally cooked by Amy, which was always a welcomed surprise. Amy was the best cook in Black Arms. And Marine… well, she didn't have a clear reason for being here, but it was rapidly becoming clear. Tails might have been a stranger to romance, but he knew a crush when he saw one, and Marine had one on Caleb. Tails hadn't noticed it before, but Marine used to treat Tails in the exact same way, prompting Tails to believe that the raccoon had once had a crush on him. It was bordering on the edge of annoying, but the brown fox hadn't seem to notice (which was impossible, considering he was an empath after all.)

How odd.

Today, Shadow and Rouge had appeared at Mystic Ruins. Rouge needed to speak with Caleb today so Shadow waited in the Sickbay with Tails while they chatted over their private matters. Tails was surprised to find out that Rouge and Caleb were acquainted. It started to make him wonder what else he had missed. Knuckles appeared as well, now spending more time at Mystic Ruins to catch up with his old friends. He was waiting for Tikal to give Tails the final thumbs up so he could leave. So waiting in the Sickbay at the moment was Tails, fully operational and ready to go, Shadow, Knuckles and Marine.

Marine had tried to fill up the awkward silence between most of them with chatter, but unfortunately, they couldn't understand half of the slang that she was using, so Shadow instead turned up the volume on the television screen. The news network had made a drastic change overnight, now showing _pro _-mutant channels and most broadcasting was taken care of by Omochao and her brother Chocola. Of course there had been uproar about this, but there was also a blatant amount of _support _for the change.

Some items of news that never seemed to make Tails feel any better was the continuous re-runs of the limited footage they had of The Aloe Heist, the incident at The Iron Domain Whore House, and hearing of Adam Mecha's death and its mysterious circumstances. The funny thing about The Aloe Heist was that Caleb was the only one that the cameras hadn't been able to get a clear shot of. The camera's caught three birds and automatically assumed it was The Babylon Rouges, who had been vegging out and hiding. He was about to tell Shadow to change the channel when a huge, pulsing 'NEW' flashed on the screen and Omochao appeared next to a live footage scene, which looked like a forensic team. In the background was a clear shot of The Docks and the storage warehouse that had caught on fire.

_"Forensic scientists that were sent to find the culprits of the break-in at Soleanna Docks four days ago have uncovered some new evidence, not pointing to the supposed culprits." _(The Babylon Rouges)

"Didn't the Babylon Rogues do a thorough enough job?" Knuckles asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't look at all approving of this. Knuckles had been in a bad mood since he and Julie-Su had returned back from The Black Market, but he refused to talk about it. Julie-Su said it was something about manly pride and Tails was just too young to have developed it yet.

"Ah," Tails said, remembering how Wave was complaining a few days earlier about a particular brown fox leaving blood all over the crime scene, "It was probably Caleb. He had a bloody hand when he came back from The Heist. He probably left his blood on the scene. I wonder what he's going to do." It wouldn't be good news for him if anybody found out where those cuts on his hand had come from. He already had enough trouble doing normal, everyday things like making coffee and his delivery job was twice as hard as it had been before.

"Ah man. I wonder what Silver would say if he was here right now."

"But Silver, Sonic and Amy don't know that Caleb was at The Aloe Heist."

_"The DNA was found next to shards of brown eye contacts belonging to a Mobian."_

"Well, it don't mean that he 'as 'is DNA set up in tha police records. 'Opefully, 'e'll get away with it, eh? He's a sly bugger anyway." Marine said a bit worriedly, eyebrows knitting together.

"He shouldn't have been being so sloppy in the first place," Shadow mumbled from his vantage point on the chair in between the cots Tails and Marine were using. Tails was reminded of Shadow's apparent former allegiance to GUN, and if the comment had sprouted from recent resurfaced memories as an agent.

_"The DNA found was splatters of blood. That of which matched former high-court official Claudel Winchester, convicted crime lord, rapist and murderer."_

...

...

Mind. Fucking. _Blown._

A deafening silence filled the room as all of the four occupants tried to process this information. Tails' first reaction was to grab the computer resting on the side table and open up Google to find an image of Winchester. _Everyone _knew who Winchester was. Claudel was one of the biggest names in the crime syndicate of Soleanna. He controlled The Four Houses, clans of assassins that would kill anyone for money. Tails knew about this because he had overheard Espio speaking about it with Vector when he had dropped off Espio's gear, the chameleon was a former member of The Shinobi Clan. Winchester also controlled The Destructix, and constantly employed such destructive personalities as Fang the Sniper, Bean the Dynamite and Bark the polar bear, not to mention working alongside fellow crime lord Mammoth Mogul.

Whatever Claudel Winchester was doing at The Aloe Heist was a mystery though. Word around was that he was constantly breaking out of The Prison District and The Mental Hospital. Unless… no… Caleb _couldn't_ be…

"No way, that is totally crooked," said Marine, instantly jumping to the fox's defense.

"How would you know?" Knuckles asked, acting oddly defensive about the entire thing, he had been in that attitude since he had returned from The Black Market. "Exactly how well do you know Heartnet? Exactly how well do we know _any_ of these thieves?"

"These 'thieves' just saved Tails' life! And well enough to know he ain't no rapist! How'd an empath be able to 'andle that kinda guilt?"

"Who knows what people with psychopathic issues think," Shadow said darkly. "I've never exactly trusted Heartnet before."

"True that," Knuckles agreed.

"Guys, stop it!" Tails said. It was true that this information threw him, but it was incredibly hard to believe that Caleb could be any of those things. He'd changed over his time at the Black Arms, becoming nicer and more tolerant of Tails and his friends. How could anyone that risked his life to get aloe vera for him be a murderer? "Besides, it says here that Winchester should be around thirty-two. Heartnet is sixteen."

"Seventeen," Marine clarified happily. "He got an iTunes voucher for 'is birthday from Miss Rouge a few days ago. 'E said that music 'elps him to block out everyone else's emotions."

"So he'd be able to concentrate while listening to music?" Knuckles asked.

"Yep!"

"Like, when trying to commit murder?"

"Quit it, ya red yabbie!"

"What did you call me?" Knuckles growled.

"Listen guys," Tails said, "Heartnet has done nothing but help me in the past few weeks, and I still owe him for tipping his savings into a vat of tar. So unless any of you are willing to cough up forty-thousand rings for him, or find any _evidence_ that he's been doing anything suspicious, then he's staying with us! And I'll have no rapist or murderer talk while we're at it."

Shadow looked like he was about to say something, but bit his tongue. Knuckles huffed angrily, but decided not to say anything. Marine smirked smugly and skipped out the door. The room was filled with silence again, except the tap of Tails' keys on the computer as he looked up more information. The scary thing was; Caleb did _look_ a lot like Claudel Winchester. Winchester had brown fur- the same shade- but red hair and brown eyes (prompting Tails to think about the brown eye contacts that they'd found near the blood). Caleb kind of looked like a scruffier, younger version of this madman, but… there were so many brown foxes in the city, it was harder to distinguish if they had any similar characteristics between them.

Tails was going to read more about the mysterious Winchester when the Sickbay door opened and Tikal walked in.

Rouge followed in behind her, "Hey Shadow, me and Callie are heading off to meet Cesario, don't wait up on me, alright?" The bat was about to disappear when Shadow grabbed her hand and forced her outside. Tails feared for whatever Shadow was going to tell her.

"Knuckles, please tell me you aren't going to spread this around," Tails pleaded, wondering if the echidna was going to cut him enough slack for that, after all, people would do anything for a sick person, now that he was healed, he didn't know how tolerant people were of him.

"Tails…" Knuckles said, his eyebrow's knitting together, "He could be dangerous…"

"Please," he softened his voice and allowed it to crack subtly, his eyes going wide and watery. It was the tactic Caleb had used on Welshscot a few weeks ago after The Doctor Fiasco, but Tails doubted that Knuckles had trained himself from the advances of an empath. Besides, he was fourteen and a lot cuter.

As the fox expected, Knuckles caved and groaned, "Alright! Just, don't cry, okay? I still don't trust him though, but if you do… I guess I can tolerate him for now."

"Thanks," he said, pretending to wipe tears away and thanking Caleb for his fantastic acting skills in his head.

_"In other news, The Iron Domain was completely demolished at the same time as the break-in at The Docks, as well as the assassination of our very own Adam Mecha."_

"God, that is a lot to take in," Knuckles murmured, settling back on one of the spare cots. "Do you think it was organised to be like that?"

Tails shrugged, "It could have been, I mean, what are the chances of three major events happening at different parts of the city,_conveniently_ splitting up all Eggman's units? The news reporters were probably having a bloody free-for-all."

"I'll bet."

_"Eye witness accounts declare that The Iron King was dragged into a dark pit by large tentacles, but forensic scientists have deduced that they were probably seeing a shared hallucination, a result of drug residue found in the Iron Domain cellars. Neither King nor Queen was found in the aftermath of the crime scene and the police are now questioning everyone involved."_

"Curious…" Tails murmured. In his head he was actually glad that the brothel had ended, corrupt things were going inside that place.

_"Now, in City Escape Zone and all over Soleanna, everyone mourns the death of our beloved Adam Mecha, by far the longest running news announcer in Solean history."_

"Haha, very funny." Knuckles said, being sarcastic about the fact that _anyone_ would miss the overtly racistreporter.

_"The circumstances of Mecha's death are unknown. What we /do/ know is who his killer is. The elusive Tails Doll has finally revealed himself to his audience, caught on tape moments before the power outage during Eggman Nega's interview on 'The Mecha Show'. What was accidentally aired during Mecha's final hours was the entire slaughter of the film crew. The backing track to this haunting event was none other than Tails Doll's famous theme song; 'Can You Feel The Sunshine?'_

_"More surveillance footage and forensic evidence is being gathered from The Crime Scene, but we warn you to keep a close eye out for this song, and **this** mask. Parents are being warned, even outside of The Crisis City Zone, that their children should be kept indoors at night time and that anti-mutant groups be** incredibly** wary of themselves."_

Tails froze.

There were no words to describe Tails' current emotional state except _completely shocked. _He didn't know anything about the man, this _killer, _this _psychopathic maniac_, apart from the fact that he butchered mutant-haters and killed Blaze's mother. And now… and now _this_ had to happen.

What the news casters were broadcasting was a blurry image of none other than a trench-coat-wearing Amadeus Prower… Tails'_father. _Tails' _DEAD _father.

He was stock-still for more than several minutes after the news. And Knuckles, also in shock, continued to watch the news, continuously shaking Tails to rouse a reaction out of the young fox who was now as still as an ice sculpture.

Tails reached up and grasped a fistful of his hair, wheezing a little because he didn't know what else to do. Could it be true that his father was the mysterious and undoubtedly _dangerous_ Tails Doll?

_I mean, _Tails thought, _it would work, wouldn't it? His name. His looks. The fact that he didn't kill me when MarDean came for me as well… Wait a second…_

That night, so many weeks ago, he had had a dream that his father had visited him in his sleep and left the crosses to his parent's graves behind. Tails thought long and hard about the note that had been left in his bedroom shortly after he had come back from the N-Zone.

It had said… 'In tua custodiam.'

_Forever in your guard._

Before he was even aware of it, his breath was coming out in broken gasps like fragmented glass and his world had started spinning again. Knuckles was a blur of vermillion, and the thoughts in his head revolved around memories from when he was four to the haunting song played behind all of Tails Doll's murders.

"Oh Solaris, it really _could_ be him."

"Buddy," Knuckles said, "are you going to be alright?"

"I have to meet him! I have to know if it's him!" Tails said, on the brink of shouting while he held Knuckle's forearm so tightly he wasn't sure if he was hurting him or not. The echidna didn't wince, but he looked around as if wondering what to do.

"Well you can't now. Think about it rationally, you're good with rational, am I right?"

"Not as of late," he replied instantly.

"True that, but listen to me anyway. Tails Doll is under a lot of heat right now, what with assassinating Soleanna's biggest news reporter and all that, and he wouldn't exactly be that bent on seeing you right now, even if he _is_ your old man."

Tails' heart ached, and he knew that Knuckles was right but he _so_ wanted to just disobey him and hop of out the bed. He _also_ knew that Knuckles would be able to catch him, licketty-split, if he tried. So the young fox slumped back into the bed and gazed up at the man in the mask again, drowning in his imagination of a different, more peaceful life.

"Fine."

* * *

><p><em>Innocent<em> by Taylor Swift

* * *

><p>When Tails was all set to go, he hugged Tikal and thanked her for all her help. When he offered to pay her for her services, she said that Heartnet had already given her ten extra bottles of aloe, more compensation then she could ever hope for. After he said goodbye to everyone he had befriended at The Garden Centre, he passed the Nocturnes lounge room, watching as Caleb stared at a painting, probably by that Selina woman MK had gushed about before. He traced the frame of the painting and sighed sadly, an expression so pure and sad flitting over his features as he ran his fingers over the ridges of the gold seal.<p>

The portrait itself was of a woman, noble-looking, beautiful. She was… holy shit, this was an image of Sonia the hedgehog.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that Caleb was actually holding his phone up to one of his ears, and he could faintly hear the sound of another shrill little voice on the other end.

"Listen, I'm sorry Lottie but there's just nothing I can do about your rabbit… No, we can't take him back, I'm sure she'll take good care of him. I'm sorry." Caleb sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Lottie, we just don't have that kind of money anymore, I'm sorry. You don't know how much I wish I could treat you like a normal little girl but... How many times do I have to say it? I'm only seventeen. I'm not mom or… well… I know. I know." He turned, sniffing before his tone became hostile, "I know. I miss her too... Now why do you even have to go bring that up? I'm being the best brother I can. Now stop being an ungrateful little brat- _No. _I'm sorry. Don't cry, Lottie. Please don't cry… As if you haven't mad me feel like total shit already…"

He sighed and turned off the phone. His hands were clenched.

"I miss you," he murmured to the portrait, fingers tracing the signature at the bottom again, "Life was _so_ much simpler back then."

This was impossible! Had Caleb known Sonia before The Massacre? Did _Sonic_ know? Probably not, but then again, Sonic hadn't exactly told him until… until… What the hell?

Caleb was looking at the picture with such longing, and touching it so lovingly that Tails thought he might have been intruding on something private. He watched the fox cross his arms over his chest and release a shaky, crooked breath, sounding just on the edge of tears. Tails moved to step away, but unfortunately the sound of his footsteps were a little too loud this time. At the sound of scratching sneakers, Caleb's head jerked and his eyes widened in surprise before he ducked down to dry them with the sleeve of his flannel.

"Ah, I'm sorry you had to see that," the brown fox murmured, rolling up his sleeves and facing away from the portrait.

"Caleb… Are you okay?"

He produced a wobbly smile and strode past him, "Am I okay? Yeah. Sure I am! Brilliant. Wonderful. Fan-_fucking_-tastic."

Tails' eyebrows knitted together, "You know, it's alright to let friends know when you're feeling a little vulnerable."

The empath laughed humourlessly before sighing at the kit and saying, "Yeah… thanks for the offer, Tails…"

Tails sighed, _I may trust him, but he sure as Hell doesn't trust me._

* * *

><p><em>Terrified by <em>Story of the Year

* * *

><p>Tails slung a ruck-sack of his belongings over his shoulder. Shadow and Rouge had left early, so now only Knuckles, Caleb and Marine were with him to escort him back to The Black Arms.<p>

"Are you alright, Tails?" Caleb asked.

Tails thought about it for a second, he hadn't said or done anything to worry them, so he assumed that the brown fox was seeing something in him that he wasn't feeling. He didn't want to disclose any information to him anyway, considering the fact that Tails had offered the same service and was shot down. If Caleb didn't want to reveal anything than he didn't either. So he simply frowned and shook his head.

The closer they came to the entrance of The Garden Centre though, the more anxious and nervous he felt. Repressed shivers stole across his skin as blurred flashes of red and white slammed through his vision. He clenched his fists, as if the movement would stop him from seeming this weak. He now understood what the problem was, but it seemed petty and stupid to acknowledge it, so maybe if he didn't and completely ignored it, it would go away.

He was already so weak already; he didn't need any more to add to that.

The fox could see the outside of The Garden Centre now, Crisis City hadn't changed a bit… and maybe that's what he was so afraid of.

"Are you sure?"

A crippling nausea overcame him and he fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

"Tails!" Knuckles cried, dropping to his knees as well, trying to see the young fox's face, "Marine! Caleb! Get Tikal!"

Images flashed through his mind, of a dirty, gunk-filled alley. Rotten teeth. Blood. Sickening cracks. The smile, the sick words leaving the son of his mother's killer.

_"What was that Prower? Afraid because your pansy-ass friends aren't with you? No telekinetic friend to back you up?"_

The shaking rage. The bile in his throat, rising up in disgust and absolute horror. Mobians to his left. A streak of black hoodie. Lurching limbs. Screaming. Breaking bones.

_"Stupid cunt. I should kill you right now."_

He fell on his side, shivers wracking his frail little body as his throat started clogging up with his built up emotions. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he thought about the bloody horror of MarDean in that alleyway.

"It isn't going to work."

"The hell _why?_" Knuckles roared.

_I don't want to go outside! I'm **scared** to go outside!_

"Because he's physically fine," Caleb explained. "It isn't his body that's broken; it's his mind, something aloe isn't going to fix. We need a psychiatrist, meaning you need my mentor."

"Can't you pull that emotive crap on him?"

_"YOU DON'T DESERVE IT! You don't deserve to choose!"_

His heart was thrumming in his ears so fast he thought he was going to have a heart attack. He reached out to find purchase, something to hold onto because his tears were blurring his vision and he was now blind to his current world, the images in his head flashes red, and all he heard was MarDean's voice as he cut the scars into his face. He traced over them now with shaking fingers, one of them running down his eyes and the other right underneath it until his arms were taken from his face and clasped in someone else's. He immediately crushed the comforting grip.

_I'm scared. Please help me. I am so fucking afraid to leave this place. Help me. Help me. Help me. Mom? Dad? Where are you? Why won't you help me? I'm scared. I'm scared! I am so scared._

"Ouch! Do sumthin' Heartnet. 'E's crushin' my hands."

"I can't do it. My power only provides a quick fix. Once he realises he's outside he's gonna have another nervous breakdown. I can't permanently change his psyche. Yikes, I'm callin' Welsh, hold your horses. Don't get yer hopes up either, I haven't been able to contact him since that shit with the Iron Domain."

Tails let out an ear piercing wail as he relived the moment he got his arm broken. The bone-chilling slam of fear accompanied the visual, the pain hitting him minutes later as his body numbed over and he watched the contortion, ready to taste the vomit rising into his mouth, choking him and making him wish he could just die.

"What's wrong with him?" Knuckles cried, as he picked the shivering Tails up and brought him back to the infirmary.

"Fuck, he isn't answering," Caleb muttered before turning back to them. "He's _scared_."

"What do you mean _'he's scared'_?"

"My power doesn't tell me _'why'_ just 'what'." The brown fox's eyebrows knitted together in worry, "But I can guess well enough."

Back in the nightmare of Tails' head, his heart was thrumming. Every sound of the violence and the harsh words were loud enough to deafen him, the stench of rust and the taste of blood overwhelmed his senses, while in reality he was wailing and gripping Knuckles arm and Marine's hand like a vice.

"What can I do to stop it?" the echidna asked.

"What's wrong with Tails?" Tikal asked, walking it at the opportune time, unfortunately, she had absolutely no idea what to do.

"He's having a nervous breakdown," Caleb clarified.

"What should I do?" she cried, taking Tails' other hand and holding him down, looking to the fox because he seemed to know the most about the situation, even if he probably didn't.

"Um… do you have any sedatives?"

Marine's jaw dropped in shock, "Seriously?"

"Yeah, I can calm him down enough for you to give him the shot. The longest I've ever altered someone's mood is three hours, and then I gave up due to exhaustion. Immediately after that, they were the same. I don't have the ability to give up that much energy; I'm on the night shift for deliveries."

"What? You were on the day shift as well," Marine said, a little dejectedly.

"Dudes… Seriously?" Knuckles asked.

"I think the best idea would be to give him a sedative," Caleb said, and Tikal nodded, acknowledging her agreement. "I mean look at him," they all turned to Tails, whose expression was so distant and glazed over that they doubted he would be able to hear him, "he's in so much pain."

Knuckles sighed, gazing at the yellow fox with an intense look of confliction.

"You know him best Knuckles," Tikal said. "What do you think?"

The echidna passed Tails one more time before staring at his feet and nodding, waving a hand dismissively. He left as Tikal started tapping the syringe, the brown fox staring intently as the younger one calmed down enough to receive the shot and fall into a wretched sleep.

* * *

><p><em>Sweet Dreams (Cover) <em>by Emily Browning

* * *

><p>Tails jerked his head left and right, it was night time and he had trouble seeing past his knees. That was how thick the darkness was. The world around him was surreal and mostly familiar, despite this unnatural aura about everything. Shivers ran up and down his spine as he tried to remember what had been occurring in the last twenty-four hours. There wasn't much he could recall past finding out that Caleb might have been related to the infamous Claudel Winchester, anything past that had blurred into flashing images of black, white and red.<p>

Normally he had incredible night vision, everything was rich with clarity, but eyes blurred constantly so the objects that moved about him were as inconceivable as algae at the bottom of a lake to someone trying not to break the surface. Visions and sight still moved before him, highlighted with an ethereal blue glow, like that of objects highlighted whenever Silver used telekinesis. It creeped him out a little, exactly how dark everything seemed. He wasn't used to being blinded.

"Hello?" he asked, and his voice was rebounded back to him, despite the fact that there was no wall or visible container surrounding him, but that of his own subconsciousness. He could tell this was a dream, but the sweat dripping down his neck had to be real, he was scared, borderline pissing himself. He really didn't want these feelings to carry onto the real world as well. He needed a way to wake himself up, but pinching himself just wasn't going to work.

He stood there, wondering what to do when the image started becoming clearer and clearer. Once he could see with clarity, he thought that it might have been better to stay blind. Everywhere he turned was the exact same alley he'd been dragged into to get beaten up, as soon as he turned to run away, his vision would blur. It'd clear up and he'd realise he'd been running _into_ the alleyway.

"S-stop it."

He stopped again before he would hit the edge of the alley.

"I want to wake up."

His enemies rose out of the ground this time, loaded with weapons they hadn't had before, guns, swords, cross bows, machetes and even pitchforks. He looked around to defend himself, noting with wide eyes that they were moving around him as if their limbs had been disconnected, but their smiles were so wide they looked as if they had been stitched apart set in place with expressions of wax.

"I want to wake up!"

His voice still echoed in his mind, but no one was answering but MarDean's voice.

_**"_Y_our very nature is grotesque."**_

"You're not real," Tails growled. "I mean… you're real, but you're not here."

_**"Dumb fucker."**_

"I'm not _stupid!_"

He was backed into his imaginary alley, noticing now that the garbage around him was actually weapons, magazines and guns surrounded him, and bullet shells scattered like a spilt packets of MnM's all over the floor. He picked up a colt python and checked to see that it was loaded, flicking the safety and aiming it at MarDean.

He shot with no hesitance, but even a bullet wound wouldn't stop him. In fact, he seemed completely unfazed. He just kept smiling and pointing the same bloody knife on him. Out of all of them, MarDean's weapon had stayed the same when all the other's had changed to scarier, deadlier versions.

_**"She deserved to die."**_

"No she didn't!"

She didn't. His dad didn't either. But... his dad might not have been dead either...

_God I miss you._

He shot again.

The bullet hit home and slammed into MarDean's head, pulling and contorting his face into some grotesque alignment. He'd shot his eye out, tore apart his cheek like it was wax until it dripped blood that was thick and red, so dark it was almost black. He could_see_the bone, the brain matter, the cartilage, and _still_ he kept advancing. They just kept on swarming around him, breathing his air, closing up the space around him until he couldn't see anything anymore and he fell to his knees, bracing himself for the pain.

_I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared._

**_"_You**_** deserve to die."**_

_I give up. Please… End it. Just kill me now._

Tails woke up burrowing his head into a pillow stained with tears. He fought through the hiccups, trying to remain quiet as he lifted a hand to his face, and then placed a hand over his heart, tracing the scars that would never fade.


	30. Underneath the Cuts and Bruises

**domi|note: **There are a few references to_ 'Misfits'_, _'Burlesque'_ and _'Step Up 3'_ in this chapter. I love_Misfits_. This show and _Batman: Arkham City_ have been my latest obsessions.

Thanks to **insidious fanboy**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek**, **LordCooler**, **DaddlerTheDalek** and** Yuke Navy Pilot** for reviewing the last chapter.

_insidious fanboy_- It's your favourite? I am _so _honoured, thank you. :) Are you really a fanboy or are you just being sweet? Caleb's past will be revealed... eventually. Yeah, kind of like a one-sided crush thing. Marine's only thirteen here after all. I like dragging stuff out! It makes everyone want to pelt rocks at me!

**Warning: **Well… you know about Caleb already.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear. ~French Proverb<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Thirty<br>_.  
>"I'm not dead just yet… I'm not dead I'm just floating, doesn't matter where I'm going. I'll. Find. You! I'm not scared at all. Underneath the cuts and bruises, finally gained what no one loses. I'll. Find. You! I will find you."<p>

_With You _by Sum 41

* * *

><p>"Poor kid."<p>

"Hmm?"

The violet swallow looked up from her work, rubbing her eyes as they flashed between the increased saturation the workshop lights added to her vision, and the natural sunlight streaming in through the large garage doors. She'd been working on their gears rigorously, now that they had means to access Eggman's new top research facility, all they needed now was a corrupt guard or official to bribe, steal the access codes, DNA and passwords from in order to break in.

Heartnet had gone M.I.A. on them after the news that his blood matched the local crime lord. She'd done a little more research into it, but research on dear Snippy had led her straight into one of CJ's famous, almost impenetrable firewalls, a design that neither she nor Tails had the time, effort and know-how to take down. This meant that they didn't have any close underground connections anymore, meaning that they'd have to make some.

But how were they going to do that when they still didn't understand _anything_ about this confusing city? Geez… she hadn't been to this place since she was a child.

Jet and Storm had just arrived from the second floor, tossing her a cooled can of lemonade which she caught and opened with a gratifyingly loud hiss. He then raised an eyebrow at her, watching her inquisitively, "You haven't heard? Short Stuff still can't leave the Mystic Garden facility because he's suffering from mental trauma. Plus there's also the fact that Tails Doll _could_ possibly be his father."

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes. "He's probably just being a dramatic little git."

Jet knitted his eyebrows together and looked away, "Yeah, just… don't say that around his friends, or else we'll be out of housing in no time."

"Do you know where Heartnet is? He probably knows what happened," she sighed, wiping her hands on a nearby rag as she took another swig of the lemonade. It was another stifling hot day, prompting all of them to strip down to the bare necessities. Wave was wearing one of her crop tops and some shorts, while the boys had chosen to wear nothing but their footwear and head gear. They hadn't been to a country this hot since the last time they had visited Mazuri.

"Heartnet's been avoiding everyone, remember? He's being emotionally unstable, so he's probably on his period or something." Wave scoffed, "It'll pass."

"How do you know he's avoiding everyone?" Jet asked, "Doesn't that contradict your earlier statement?"

She growled, "Everyone but _me_ apparently. He speaks to me after his work sometimes; he just sits on the other end of the bench and draws in his dumb little black book." She gestured towards the sketchbook sitting right next to Tails' abandoned gear, still half dismantled.

Jet drummed his fingers against the bench, eyes shifting over to book every now and then before he said, "I know this is a total invasion of privacy but-"

"Don't do it, Boss."

The green hawk totally ignored him and smirked as he got his greedy thieving hands on the worn-looking book with frayed pages and spiral-bound wire all bent out of place. The technician continued to work on improving their gear, pausing a second to pass a glance at Tails' Gear Log, which had been brought back to The Black Arms when The Babylon Rogues had recovered.

_I don't know why I did that to all of his commissions… _she thought absently, jolted out of her thoughts when she heard a collective gasp coming from both of her comrades. They were flipping through the pages of the art book, their eyes wide as they observed Caleb's work. In all honesty, she didn't consider the fox the artsy type, so their reactions to his work were confusing her.

"Wave, these are incredible! You have to look at them," Storm said, forcing Jet to put the book down onto the workbench so that Wave could see. She gave into curiosity and looked at the book, eyes widening when she realised what she was looking at. Art work, lots of it, with different concepts, techniques, sketches, colouring, pencils, watercolours, crayons and such. Stuck between the pages using glue, sticky-tape and paper clips were photographs, small writing clips and random items could have meant anything; a flower, a flier for a concert, a guitar pick, a few feathers, a chocolate bar wrapper…

Even without reading the writing, or examining any of the incredibly beautiful pictures in detail, she could tell this was extremely personal and was so reluctant to look at it. If it had been someone she didn't know, she wouldn't have thought twice about looking through it… but _now…_

They marvelled at the detail and skill in his work, some were of sprites, mythical creatures, based of The Renaissance, modern day fairy tales. Some were of actual people and actual locations, recreated from photographs strewn across the pages (_Polaroids_, she noted, interestingly). Some of them were of people, Mobians, doing different things; sports, speaking, expressions. Some didn't make sense at all, and were explained through Heartnet's messy handwriting in small paragraphs. The ones that had been compiled from pictures had them attached; some of the images had been ripped out of magazines.

They paused at a certain page, it wasn't particularly interesting, but the amount of effort he put into this image was visual; they could _tell_ how much this image meant to him. It was a girl, by the looks of it, she was an ermine. She had beautiful white fur and thick curls that were tinted an odd aquamarine colour. She had nicely shaped almond eyes with sapphire irises, just a little darker than Caleb's. Her lips were curved just so they could tell she was trying to supress laughter, and she was looking to her left, so she wasn't aware someone had been taking a picture, or sketching her, either one.

It looked like something had been taped to the image. There was a faint rectangle of faded colour from the watercolour paint indicating that something had been ripped away from it. She wondered what it was.

"Do you think that's his girlfriend?" Jet asked eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

Wave rolled her eyes (she felt like she had been doing that a lot lately) and growled in disgust at Storm and Jet's open mouths, knowing they'd be drooling soon if they didn't stop looking. She could see why too, this girl was _radiant. _Possibly one of the most beautiful people she had ever seen. _How_ had Caleb met her? In what universe does a deity allow such an _angel_ to know a prick like Snippy?

_She was probably one of the pretty popular girls that he lusted over as a kid, _she laughed inwardly, trying to read the writing at the bottom of the page, "Hey Storm, what does that say?"

"It says, 'Happy 18th Birthday, Arly'."

"Wait a second…" Wave paused, hands skimming over what looked like lyrics, "that's a song… _Enlil, _did he write a _song_ for her?" she asked in astonishment. "Who _is_ this person? It certainly isn't Snippy."

"Looks like it," said Storm.

"Do you think he was one of those freaks that stalked girls from a distance?" Jet asked, attempting to turn the page when Wave stopped him.

"Hey, when is this dated to?"

Jet paused a second before he made a small impressed sound, "October 17th, three years ago."

"Oh please, do you honestly think that he could get a girlfriend three years older than him?" Wave declared before she noticed the sceptical looks that they were sending her, "What?"

They both grinned, "Oh nothing. We just noticed your incredibly chummy relationship with Tails at The Garden Centre. A fox that just happens to be _four_ years your junior."

"He's _jailbait!_"

She started shaking, her hands grasping her wrench about to thwack them when Storm simply laughed and decided to turn the page; they started making more surprised noises. On the other side were three photographs, one them was of a much younger Caleb, looking down at his sketchbook, oblivious to the world around him as he doodled away. The second one was of this 'Arly', kissing him on the cheek as he desperately tried to claw away, mortified with embarrassment. The third was of the both of them again, looking at his new picture. She was pointing to something in the drawing, and he was explaining it to her, again totally oblivious.

"Okay, so he wasn't a stalker."

_They look so cute together. _And it wasn't just that, Caleb looked completely at ease, so different to the bitter, crude, asshole that they knew. What had happened to _this_ boy? He was so different. She could see no psychopath/murderer/rapist in the eyes of this once kind boy. No one would even dare to _think_ that if they saw these Polaroids.

The Caleb in the picture's eyes looked lighter, his hair was shorter, just brushing his shoulders, and it wasn't tinted red. He had no piercings and didn't wear an excessive amount of bracelets, just one. Plus, he didn't dress like he was a hobo, he actually fit into what she expected the stereotypical artist to wear, save for the Converse sneakers; skinny jeans, a t-shirt, a loose cardigan and oversized nerd glasses. He looked adorable; then again he was _thirteen_ in this picture.

The next sketch of Arly looked like it had been beaten and trod on, her face carelessly crossed out with an angry red marker, but the black lines beneath it proved what a beautiful picture it had once been. Underneath that sketch was a shoddy picture of Caleb, drawn in someone else's hand. The writing on Caleb's picture was neat but almost illegible, and it was signed by Arly herself. In Caleb's hand, he'd written Arielle Truscott under her picture, but 'Arielle' had been crossed out and re-written in 'Arly'.

"Is the name 'Truscott' familiar to you?"

They flipped through the end, hoping for some explanation, but it just randomly cut off about a year ago. The last few pictures had been of an older female artist Wave knew she could name, just not at this moment. There was also a little girl that looked around five years old playing with Caleb as if they were siblings. "I don't get it," Jet said. "What do you think happened to them?"

"Well, definitely none of the things your last girlfriend left you for."

Shocked, they all turned around, trying to locate where Caleb's voice had come from, but when they looked back to the book it was gone, and the brown fox was next to the staircase, leaning on the wall with the black sketchbook propped on his hip. His expression was a mix between amusement and distain.

"And what did my last girlfriend leave me for?" Jet asked, sceptically.

He shrugged, his stupid bracelets making that annoying jangling noise, "Probably something weird; sniffing panties, sexually offending a ninety year old woman, trying to cut out your tongue, I KNOW!" he said, as if gifted with a sudden epiphany, "she caught you trying to fuck a _fruit._"

"She did _not!_"

"Was it a melon?" he asked, eyes alight, masking the hidden resentment.

"I have never _fucked_ a melon!" Jet screeched.

The sentence reverberated around the garage, and they heard the door to the second floor open a tad, "Well congratulations, Jettison. Now everyone doubts your sexual orientation. See ya, Creeper."

"Hey, Heartnet!" Wave called, "Wait a second." The brown fox made an exaggeration out of his movement, turning around with a huge huff before she asked her question, "What happened to her? What happened to Arielle Truscott? How did you even _meet_her?"

She knew she was being nosey, but she felt like she _had _to know. Caleb drummed his fingers against the stair railing before answering, "Well, see… she caught me shagging her brother, and being the doll that she was, politely volunteered to record us. She got some incredible shots; doggy-style, rodeo, oral, some kind of screwed up version of miss-"

"Oh shut up and stop being a fucking troll," Wave growled, knowing that Caleb was just lying to rile them up. The brown fox had been successful in irritating them _and_ changing the subject. She couldn't even reel the subject back in before he disappeared up the stair case.

"There is absolutely _no_ way that dipshit was with a girl like her," Jet growled. Wave and Storm nodded as well. But in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but wonder if there was even a _shred_ of that boy that she saw in the pictures in the young man they saw today.

* * *

><p><em>Cops and Robbers<em> by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>It had been two days, well, technically it was almost three and Wave was on the brink of ripping her feathers out. All she heard whenever she came back to the Black Arms for an errand was 'Oh, poor Tails!' or 'Wow, I sure wish Tails was here' or 'Where's Prowe- Oh yeah…' All the sympathy, the sadness, and the near silent atmosphere was about to drive her insane.<p>

She was used to the Black Arms that was lively and always had something going on, where the only person brooding was Shadow. Now that everyone was being a sourpuss, she couldn't speak properly without someone giving her a death-glare, and it was making her _really _uncomfortable. Not to mention irritable. Caleb had asked her if she was on her period twice now ("Awesome! You and Shadow synchronise cycles!") and had lost brain cells because of it.

Heartnet had been lingering around the garage, listening to music and waiting for his shift to start while Wave worked on Storm's gear that night. The brown fox didn't sketch around her anymore; he probably didn't trust any of The Rogues, which was understandable, considering the fact that they'd invaded his personal space. He didn't hold it against them, considering the fact that he was constantly in their heads and picking their minds apart to further irritate them.

They both fell silent as Cream and Amy came into The Garage. The rabbit looked like she was in tears.

"Don't worry, Cream, I'm sure that Tails will get better with some tender, loving care," Amy reassured and the empath scoffed, rolling around a lollypop in his mouth. The pink hedgehog gave him a death glare and escorted the rabbit upstairs.

Wave turned back to the fox and smirked, "That was really _mean_ of you."

The blue-eyed vulpine grinned, taking out his lollypop (grape flavoured) and rested the stick between his middle and forefinger, as if he was holding a cigarette, "Ya know, I reckon the reason he isn't getting any better is because people are treating him differently. The sympathetic crap? Prower ain't like that."

"How do you reckon?"

"You remember when we were playin' that fighting game a few weeks ago? Tekken?"

"Oh yeah, that boss was a bitch," she grinned, tightening a screw, imagining it was that bloody crystallised dragon everyone had had so much trouble beating.

"Yeah; Tails had a clear shot of beating him, didn't ya see? He was three hits away from wining, but then Creampuff noticed that he was doing _really_ well and cheered him on. You didn't see him grimace? As soon as everyone started cheering for him, he started to loose."

Wave raised an eyebrow, "I still kind of don't get it."

"Support in these situations is one thing, but if people go out of their way to treat Tails nicely, when he's content staying in the background with just a few quiet words of support, then he's gonna start freaking out. Kindness in this situation is making everything a lot worst," he explained, popping the lolly back into his mouth.

Without even realising it, she smiled, "Is that some psychiatric bull you learnt from your mentor?"

"No!" he cried sassily, exaggerating his movements playfully by placing his hands on his hips. He returned to his original stance and tone before saying, "Believe it or not, it's from personal experience."

"In what universe did you _ever_ have similarities to Tails?" she joked, but she was really trying to get Caleb to reveal a little bit about his past. She wanted to know more about what had happened to Arielle.

His blue eyes narrowed in mirth, "Doth my ears deceive me? Did you just call Tails by his _first_ name?"

Wave clasped her hands over her mouth, blushing furiously. Caleb simply laughed, "You did this to me!" She cried, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"Believe what you want, Darling. I didn't do anything."

He narrowly avoided a wrench thrown at his head, claiming that his shift was about to start as an excuse.

"Does that mean that you're not looking for your mentor anymore?"

"Oh I found him. He's resting up after The Iron Domain fiasco. Get this; I'd just come back from visiting the orphanage right, and they were playing that dumb Hokey-Pokey game. It got stuck and I was humming it when I met up with him. He nearly bit my head off."

"Yeah, weird."

He gave her a quick wave before he disappeared behind the doors.

Even if Heartnet wasn't there anymore, she noticed that the feeling she had towards this revelation would not go away. She wanted Tails better, but not so that his friends would stop moping, but because she genuinely missed the fact that he was always so cheerful, a reluctant optimist, and the fact that he was so determined to get better at creating and repairing Extreme Gear. Plus he was like the glue that kept all of The Black Arms together.

Wave rapped her knuckles against her head lightly, trying to will the flush from her cheeks to go away. Not only had Caleb made her realise these feelings, but he'd successfully managed to change the subject to veer away from himself.

_Bastard._

There was only one way to acknowledge if these feelings were truth, or just some deranged fantasy Caleb had concocted inside her head; and that was to get Prower outside of The Garden Centre.

She slipped outside and locked the door to the garage Shadow had left with her, holding Tails' gear in it's compact form with of her hands and her own in the other. She looked left and right to make sure no one was following her before she boarded her Extreme Gear and zipped off towards The Garden Centre.

Slipping through their defences was easy after she had examined the place the first time she had been here and analysed it the second. It was the sneaking around bit that was probably the trickiest part, and since everyone here knew she was a 'friend' of Caleb, then they wouldn't raise the alarm anyway.

Getting into the sick bay was a walk in the park, even if she had expected things to be a little harder (it was probably due to all that time she spent with Jet playing Assassin's Creed when she should have been working that made her more paranoid). As it turned out, confronting Tails had actually been the hardest bit.

When she walked into the sick bay, the first thing she heard was a sharp crash of glass, and then Tails had a cracked bottle of aloe at her throat while she was pushed up against the door of the sick bay. She didn't have time to react, she was too engrossed in his eyes, and they were so eerily _empty._

"Hey, wait! It's just me."

Tails released a shaky sigh as a flash of recognition made itself apparent in his eyes and he looked down at the makeshift weapon in his hands. Shit. It was half an aloe vera bottle.

"Nice one, Prower."

"Oops."

She was surprised, at how easily Tails' voice had steadied. Maybe there was some truth to Caleb's stupid preachings after all. She roughly pushed Tails away, prompting a small 'Sorry' out of the fox before the emptiness started to envelop his expression once again. That was what she was trying to avoid, so she thought about a way to change Tails' attitude.

_Um, um… strong points of personality… Curiosity!_

"I bet you're wondering why I'm here, right?" she asked, unfolding her glasses from where they had been hanging from her shirt.

It took him two moments to answer, "In a way."

Wave took her time to check out Tails' attire. He was fully dressed, which was odd for a patient. Maybe they hadn't been able to touch him since he'd started having these incredibly violent episodes? Knuckles came back with a bruise around his arm.

There was an age of awkward silence before he continued, "Are you going to tell me?"

She knitted her eyebrows, "You're awfully blunt."

"Sorry. I've no idea why." He said, smoothing his bangs out of his face before placing the top half of the aloe bottle on the side of the cot with an ironic amount of gentleness. "It still doesn't answer my question."

She held up a finger as she tried to remember why she had been here in the first place, "Ah yes. This is your Extreme Gear." She held up the yellow device, and he examined it with a technician's eye, making sure she hadn't done anything bad to it.

"What of it."

"I need you to get it to change for me."

"No," he answered immediately, his tone put off and a little defensive. He was being extremely cautious, but at least he was showing emotion.

"Doesn't matter because I've overrided the system to listen to my voice as well. See? 'Yellow Tail; Gear Change'." Just as she'd said, the Extreme Gear morphed from its contained, brief case-like state into its normal yellow-orange board state.

"Hey! You have no right to do that," he growled, eyes flickering like blue flames.

She smirked, _Heartnet, you're a genius. _He wasn't being himself fully, sure, but he was showing an emotion that wasn't fear, which was already a huge improvement. She got the screwdriver she had been carrying in her back pocket out of her pants and slowly started to unscrew the side panel of his Gear.

"I am going to rip of this panel, and take out the first three wires I see, which, knowing you, are going to lead to the ignition box, the inner structural chamber for the turbines, and the radiation unit."

"Quit it!" he growled again, knowing that she had guessed accurately. Wave tried to ignore the tingling sensation she received all over her torso and she stepped back. Tails stepped forward, angered by her audacity.

"Then I'm going to dislodged the puffer jets and ruin the inverse kinetics of the-"

"Don't you _dare!_"

And then she smirked, as her hand curled around the handle of the door frame, "If you ever want to see the board _alive_ ever again, you'll follow me."

"_Excuse me?"_

She used he brief amount of time he was using to speculate over the apparent 'murder' of his board, to sneak out of the door and sprint down the hallway leading to the outside of the underground compartments for The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre.

"Wait! Wave!" he tried to whisper as loud as he could, his voice still echoed of the walls so she could hear it. She stopped, laughing at him silently, "There are people here! Can't we do this later?"

"No! You follow me now, or else I'm dumping the innards of the board into The Docks."

Tails visually paled at the threat.

"Huh, that's right Kitty, your control box might be waterproof, but your spark plugs ain't."

"It's impossible to protect them from water without detaching them from the main control system."

"And without that, you'd have no board now would ya?" she grinned, tip-toeing through The Centre until they could see the outside of it. Tails tried to follow her as silently as possible, gulping when he saw the outside of the Centre. Heartnet had explained that this was where Tails had had his last mental breakdown; she needed to push him past this, tough love and all that. She really did feel sorry for him, but… she really wanted him back.

Wave was a selfish person by nature (thieves… greedy… go figure, right?) and what she wanted, she got.

"Wave! _Please…_ I don't want to go outside."

She stopped, and for a second, her heart ached at the poor pitiful tone that Tails had used. All the sisterly instincts that had been wasted on Jet were brought to the surface. She fought with herself to envelop the young kit in her arms and rock him until he felt better. But no… that would have been out of line, wouldn't it?

"I'm scared."

She couldn't help but look at the fox, watching his brows knit together, how his bottom lip wobbled, and how his eyes were glazed with fear once again. Maybe she couldn't do this… What if doing this would get her kicked out? Well…. it was always good to try.

* * *

><p><em>Running Away <em>by Runner Runner

* * *

><p>"Prower, come here for a bit."<p>

She opened the door and turned to face the inside of The Centre, squatting down prompting Tails to follow her. She placed the board down gently and took his hand in hers, placing it on the cobblestones outside of The Centre. Tails visibly flinched, but looked into her eyes, waiting for a story.

"When I was younger, I was teased and beaten up a lot."

"Why?" he asked, because honestly? Wave was smart and beautiful. How could you have teased anyone for that?

"Because I'm a geek," she smiled, and for the first time in their entire conversation, Tails curved his lips too as if he was trying to imitate the movement. "When other girls were into bras and romance novels. I was into Call of Duty and learning parkour or free-running. I was also friends with Jet, the most popular boy in The Divine Wings Academy, which is where you go before you join the Battle Bird Armada. Don't get me wrong, I have never seen Jet as more of a little brother. If my grandfather wasn't Jet's dad's teacher then we'd probably never have met before. Come to think of it, if Jet's dad didn't adopt Storm, then we'd never have met."

"Your grandfather taught The Legendary Wind Master?"

She nodded, "Yes. And it was Hell on Mobius for me at school. When people weren't using me to get closer to Jet, or driving me away from both Jet _and_ Storm, they were sabotaging my Gear and saying that I'd _never_ measure up to my grandfather."

"Wow… I'm sorry," he murmured.

"But we're veering a little off topic," she said as she got up and gentle started to stride backwards, Tails' hands still clasped in her own. He was hesitant to follow her, but after a little more insistent tugging and after she said, 'I'm not telling you the rest of the story until you come outside' he inched forward.

"I was popular with the boys. Not because I was pretty, I was what you would call 'The Ugly Duckling'? Which is like, _s_o racist to ducks by the way. I was the girl that boys would come to for advice, even if I didn't know what I was doing. I was the one they wanted to play soccer with and come to for their Gear upgrades. Chase was a girl in my class that was the pretty popular one, right? She was a swan. Jet was dating her, so he didn't believe me when I said that Chase had been teasing me and generally making me regret coming to class." She heaved in a shaky sigh, a little reluctant to bring up these horrible feelings, but she knew it would make Tails see her point.

"One day, she invited me to one of her sleepovers. Now I, being a stupid little eleven-year-old, was so lonely and tired, wanting to make amends for something I'd never done wrong, that I accepted. Jet was glad that we were finally getting along… That night, her friends… tied me down and… ripped out nearly all of my feathers."

Tails gasped as Wave dipped her head down, her bangs shielding her eyes, "That's horrible… I'm _really_ sorry that happened to you Wave."

Of course he was. Having your feathers ripped out was a degrading and humiliating punishment, plus the fact that it was _incredibly_painful. The human equivalent would be ripping out huge locks of hair at the same time, leaving a scabby, bloody mess.

"Besides the point," she said, waving off his comment. "I am a petty person, and I got revenge on the bitch. Double it, if you think about it properly. Jet realised what had happened and dumped her, right before I dumped a chemical solution on her that made all of her feathers fall off too, but without the pain. I caught it on tape."

"What did you do after that?"

"My grandfather tried to teach me reverence. Patience. All that being-bigger-than-the-other-person thing. At first, I taunted her with the prospect of airing the tape all over the internet for the entire world to see. But then I stopped, and she forgot about the tape, but she continued to tease me because my feathers had been ripped out, and hers had moulted off, meaning that mine took three times as long to heal."

She stopped a second to examine her arm, "My feathers came back, more beautiful, shinier and softer than ever. But… all of the chemicals, the shampoo, the growth extractions, all of the unnatural stuff she had done to her skin made her feathers come back ugly, frayed and greying. When she realised why, she tried to take it out on me, she said she would report it to the principle, but I retorted that I would say why _my_ feathers disappeared at the same time.

"It took me over eight months to grow my feathers back to normal, and in that time, the only people who would hang out with me were Storm and Jet… and occasionally some weird kid called Speedy. I'd normally spend my breaks practicing Methel Alewah, it's the signature fighting style of The Babylonians. After she realised what she'd done to her own feathers, she tried to attack me and I broke her beak. Even when she was left on the floor trying to fix it, all she wailed about was the fact that I could stand tall while she ruined my reputation, humiliated me and degraded me, even in front of Grand Battlekukku."

She shook her head at Tails' confusion, "My point is; my grandfather told me that if you run away scared, you're just letting them win. Said something about how if a cat is bitten by a snake, even once, then they become afraid of rope. You can't let something like fear stop you from being free. Isn't that what The Freedom Fighters are all about? _And _The Nocturnes. Not to mention The Black Arms, your very own family, fight for the cause that you've run away from."

She let one of her hands go, but still held onto his other one. Tails realised only now, that she had been slowly leading him away from The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre until he couldn't see it anymore. No… now they were at The Docks, watching the moonlight reflect in the water. Tails gazed at her in amazement, wondering how she had managed to distract him this long. There was still a slight constriction around his chest, but it didn't mask the growing adoration he felt towards her.

"I get your pain, so I can say this with complete understanding: Chase thought she won, but she ended up paying the most. Don't let MarDean win. God knows he doesn't deserve it."

He released a shaky sigh, and looked up into her eyes. She fought a gasp, wondering when Tails' baby blue eyes had become so luminous. They were different now, vulnerable, scared, but the shine in them, and the way that he curved his lips just so, told her that she'd given him hope. Slowly he nodded and that small curve turned into a full fledged smile.

"Come with me…"

"But-"

"Do you trust me?"

"_No!"_

"Good, because that would have made this so much less entertaining."

Without any warning, she sprinted off, both gears in hand, waiting for Tails to follow her.

He did.

* * *

><p><em>Counting The Stars <em>by Short Stack

* * *

><p>"I know this building." They'd climbed to the top of a sky scraper, how in the world could Tails distinguish this one from any of the others. Oh yeah...<p>

"Yep. Of course you know it. It's the closest one to the crash sight of Eggman's most famed Laboratory." Wave stated.

"Been doing your homework, have you?"

"A little."

"Well," Tails said, "I didn't mean that… in that way… I used to fly up here when I was a younger, there's a working-Ah! Here it is!" Wave followed him to the corner of the building, until they were standing over a vent. "Four years ago, a team of GUN agents called The Chaotix started using this abandoned building and they've got an old air con system that goes in a fritz at exactly three pm, eleven-thirty pm, five am and ten am every day."

"It's eleven thirty now, I don't see any-Ahh!" before she could finish her sentence, a strong gust of wind soared up from the vent beneath them, prompting her to grab her bandana before it soared off her head. Tails was laughing at her shocked expression.

"I don't get it!" she screamed over the blast of air. "How do you derive amusement from this?"

He held up a finger and hopped of the vent, "Come over here!"

She walked over to where the little fox had found a niche in the wall, pulling out a small shoebox. When she opened it, there was a heap of rainbow-coloured paper cranes in there, a little old looking but still rather cool.

"Eggman hates festivals, celebrations, and most things colourful. So when I was like eight, I started doing origami. When I realised that wasn't going to do anything, after the Crimson Night, I released a whole lot of red cranes from this building, using the air vent. They all spread out over Soleanna, and guess what happened after that?"

"What?" she asked excitedly.

"The 'Red Crane Charity' was created, to help those that had been affected by The Crimson Night. I mean, what does a crane symbolise? Good luck, wishes granted. Thank kind of stuff. The colour red might symbolise, blood and lust, but it also brings great fortune, according to the people of Chu Nan. Yeah?"

Her eyes widened in amazement, "Did you ever tell anyone this?"

He snorted, "_No. _Like anyone would believe me anyway."

"I do."

It was out of her mouth before she could stop it, and Tails ducked down, a blush slowly spreading over his cheeks. To change the subject, he offered her the cranes, "Here. Releasing these is kind of like a 'Screw You' to the Crisis City Government."

"What? You mean 'Mass Littering'? What a dare devil you are, Tails." She joked.

He stopped for a second, and this time Wave stopped to be a little embarrassed when she realised she had called him by his first name. He politely decided not to acknowledge it, and watched as she threw the multi-coloured cranes into the vent, loving the swirling rainbow of colour as the wind picked it up and threw it towards The Docks as if it was a real bird flock.

"It's beautiful."

"Plus it makes everyone else feel a little better. I started a trend you know? People release cranes all over the city when The Festival of The Sun comes along."

"That's pretty damn amazing."

"Oh, making a thousand cranes is easy. It's making the wish come true which is the hard part," he sighed wearily, but he was smiling now. Awesome. She'd successfully managed to do what even Tails' friends couldn't. She'd need to thank the brown-furred asshole later. Who ever said that insanity and genius were two different things?

"And what do you wish for Tails?"

A heartbeat.

A sigh.

"… Acceptance."

They stayed like that, watching the cranes float along the breeze from the edge of the building.

"How did it feel when you broke her beak?" he asked curiosity, but there was a sly note of amused sarcasm in it.

"As fucking _brilliant_ as it will when you break MarDean's nose."

He laughed, and the raspy, boyish sound sent shivers down her spine.

"I'll hold you to that."


	31. An Old Home

**domi|note**

The chapter is currently unedited, because I'm more focused on shuffling it into the right place. I promise that after the sweep, I'll come back to it. **  
><strong>

Back to Welshscot...

_**R/L/A/N: Hey, it's me again. Sorry about the long absence, been up to my heels in revision and having lovely R/L problems. I am way behind on my input and need to catch up. But before you read on, there's one thing you need to know:**_

_**CJ is a liar. Not the real CJ, the character CJ. She doesn't lie all the time, but it's in her nature to lie to a bunch of people she doesn't even know. Kinda like Caleb, though not as cool. So most of the stuff you read about her in the interview was just lies, but not all of it. I might write another interview if I can catch up, one where she tells the truth.**_

_**But anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of the chapter **_:)

**An old home and a new face**

_This is not a home, I think I'm better off alone—_Home—Three Days Grace

_The whole room Welshscot was sitting in was blank. From the stone walls and floor to the plain door, everything was smooth, texture-less and barren. Even the chair the medic was sitting on was missing the shine of metal or the rough surface of a plastic seat. Welshscot, whose face was like everything else in this void, slowly stood up from his chair. Without showing a single trace of eagerness or worry, the red-headed physiatrist moved towards the blank door, his bandaged hand reaching for the handle without excitement or hesitance. When his bandaged digits curled around the door's handle, all he felt was the shape, which was neither warm nor cold. _

_The door swung open easily and Welshscot was suddenly blinded by a surge of light, which managed to break the icy layer over the medic's eyes. As he blinked rapidly, his eyes soon adjusted to the change of lighting...allowing him to see Hjalmar being kicked to the floor. The masked-man landed faced first, right next to a broken and beaten CJ; whose face was matted with blood and bruises. _

_Though Welshscot was surging with anger, he somehow couldn't remove the mask he had worn for so long. Even his eyes, the weakest part of his mask, didn't blare as he gazed at the back of his friends' attacker. Rushing forwards, the hybrid readied his fists. Soon, his fist grabbed the shoulder of the attack and spun his around, revealing..._

_The look of surprise did not shine from Welshscot's face, but the face of the attacker, who shared Welshscot's looks down to the smallest strand of hair. The attacker, after copying the shock that Welshscot had felt but couldn't have express, smiled dolefully before punching the real Welshscot in the face. Staggering back in pain, the medic barely had time to counter as his copy attacked him once more. The copy's expression had changed; it was now crying, tears streaming down his cheek. His moans of misery were not exaggerated, even when it hit the real medic in the stomach. In fact, they sounded completely normal. And that's what scared Welshscot the most. _

_The real physiatrist lost track of time as he took hit after hit from his emotion showing counterpart, helplessly accepting each blow and each change of emotion that came across his copy's face. His replica showed happy smiles that used to belong on the real medic's face, along with cynical glares, hyperactive smiles and content sighs. _

_As anger made its debut, accompanied by a punch to the chest, Welshscot finally fell backwards; defeated by the tide of emotions he constantly held at bay. Though his feet momentarily left the floor, they soon found footing on a raised wooden structure, just as a rope began to press against Welshscot's throat. Though he realized that he was standing on the gallows with a noose around his neck, the medic still kept the blank mask in check; if he wanted to or not. _

_Turning his grey eyes outwards, Welshscot soon saw, right in front of him, a crowed of shadowed people who were all standing on the executioner's trap door with a rope around their necks. . Though their faces were hidden, he recognised the certain shapes of people he knew; the outline of Hjalmar's hood, the shape of Metal Knuckles hands and..._

_It was by some higher power that stopped the mask from shooting off Welshscot's face, as a deep, pure hatred began to rage inside of him. Even though her face was shadowed, he recognised the silhouette of his mother, of Marsali the Dragon-Scottmen. In life, Marsali had green-scaled skin that was similar to the medic's right arm. Her eyes were also the same, a sharp grey, but had a calculating quality that seemed to be able to taken in every little detail and every trace of weakness._

_Her silhouette was at the head of the group and was in the same predicament as the others, just a breath away from dangling by the neck. Welshscot, as he began to feel the rope tighten around his own neck, then recognised the shape of the person next to his mother. _

_When he was alive, Owen Scottmen looked quite like his son. They had the same hair, though clean shaven, and facial shape, but the long dead doctor had muddy brown eyes and his arm was scale-less. Even though Owen had perished many years ago, during a fire caused by the massacre, Welshscot still had a fond image of his father that fitted the shadowy shape he saw next to his mother. _

_As Welshscot remembered happy memories that failed to shine through his mask, a familiar, dark and taunting voice echoed from the shadowy figures. A voice that Welshscot had recently heard at the Mystic Ruins Garden centre, but had heard constantly for the past two years, which said:_

"_**She made her choice Welshald..." **_

_As those words crept into the hybrid's skull, the silhouette of Marsali began to remove the noose from around her neck. Just as her shrouded toe stepped off the gallows, all of the shadows of Welshscot's friends and family suddenly sank out of sight; as the trap door finally opened. And all Welshscot heard was the sound of their necks breaking as they reach the end of the rope._

_Welshscot, as he gazed at the scene of death that lay before him, felt helplessness and sadness churl inside of him. But even though he tried, none of the tears he felt could leave his blank grey eyes. The mask that he had set upon his own face was starting to get heavier, due to the emotions that were locked away, but it still kept its place. Its purpose has not been fore-filled..._

"_**...and she will make it again, unless you make it first."**_

_The taunting voice, which had begun to cackle mirthlessly, seemed to crawl directly into the hybrid's left ear. While keeping emotion at bay, Welshscot followed the path the dark voice had taken, turning his head in the direction of the laughter's source. His head now turned to the left, the medic saw the silhouette of his mother again. It was in the same predicament that Welshscot was in, standing on a wooden stand with a rope pressing against her neck. _

_The bodiless voice stopped his chorus of sneering laughter, only to utter more poisoned words. **"It's either you or Marsali...Or maybe..."**_

_The voice trailed off, leaving a low, menacing chuckle in its wake. As the chuckling began to get louder and louder, the hybrid began to sense a new presence that was directly to his right. Turning his head, his neck's skink sliding against the rough surface of the noose, the hybrid's sight was soon laid upon a new sight. A sight that made him cry—_

"WELSHALDY!"

After his consciousness was violently dragged to the real world, Welshscot's eyelids snapped open. Forgetting his disturbing nightmare, the hybrid automatically sat up and, with annoyed eyes that shined from his blank face, shouted, "IT'S WELSHSCOT, DAMN IT!"

Needless to say CJ, having been leaning over the sleeping hybrid's face, leapt back with a yelp. She landed hard upon Hjalmar's toes, resulting in a low grunt of pain from the Norwegian forensic.

As the hacker began to apologise to her masked friend, Welshscot began to take in his surroundings. The first, and most obvious, give away was the smell. Though not as overpowering as he remembered, the hybrid's nostrils could still detect the familiar aroma of raw ginger, clusters of different chilli-peppers and hordes of different meat-fried rice. The medic also recognised the medium-sized and barren guest room and the single, metal framed bed that he had awoken on. Though this void only had the bed to take up one corner, it was still quite colourful thanks to the choice of green/blue wallpaper with water-lily patterns.

He was on the first floor (second if you're not from the UK) of the Chi Tai Eat restaurant, a place that he had once called home until two years ago. And to solidify Welshscot's suspicion, the door of guest room suddenly burst open. All three of the new faces were familiar, partially Metal Knuckles and Fina, both looking healthy and both looking relived to see that the medic was awake. But the oldest of all the faces was dark-skinned, which was equally scarred and wrinkled, armed with two black, beady eyes and topped with black, grass length hair.

As the medic kept his emotionless eyes upon the incoming trio, CJ, her apology accepted by Hjalmar, turned on her heels and said, triumphantly, "See, I told you shouting at him would work, Rye!"

Rye, who was wearing a coconut and pork stained apron, flashed a wide grin that made his scars more visible than his wrinkles. "Yes..." replied the dark-skinned chef in an authentic, yet slow undertone Chinese accent, "...but you also said that giving him whisky-laced aloe vera would bring him round."

"Which it would," quipped in Hjalmar, "along with bring the entire building down round our knees." The hacker laughed, sheepishly, while trying to hide her embarrassment.

As the masked Norwegian gave CJ a reassuring pat on the back, Rye strode ahead of M Knucks and Fina until he was by the side of Welshscot's bed. He was slightly taken aback when he looked at the hybrid's face and saw...well, absolutely no emotion. The chef's eyes had seen Welshscot before and he could say this was the same face...in shape, but the presence of erratic and expressive life was gone. Zackary, when he arrived nearly ten minutes ago, had warned Rye that Welshscot was...well, different.

Managing to keep his composure, the chef quickly took up his sly grin (which threw his scars into full view) and chuckle, "Hi, Welshscot. Nice to see you back here, pity all it took was a bottle of cheap gin, a zombie cannibal and a tentacle fetish." His previous chuckle returned, only to die dryly.

Welshscot eyes didn't even roll to the ceiling with exasperated. Shame, for even a negative response would have been a pleasant sight for everyone except Fina, who thought that his emotionless face was the norm for the hybrid. He didn't show an emotion in his voice, as he replied, tonelessly, "How's the rent?"

There was an awkward silence, which seemed to suffocate the bionic woman as she was a newcomer to the Chi Tai Eat. Rye bit his lip, more put-out then offended by the medic's statement. CJ, on the other hand, gave Welshscot an angry glare, as if he had uttered a joke about the Mammoth Mogul murders and the Massacre. Hjalmar's mask seemed to crease around the mouth, like he was piercing his lips, and he slowly shook his head in resigned defeat.

After awhile, Zackary managed to break the silence. Moving to the other side of the hybrid's bed, where Hjalmar and CJ were standing, the gang leader sat down on the lower end of the bed, his expression friendly yet business like. "Gotta hand it to you and TD" began Zackary, "You know how to load a guy with work after his date, especially good dates." Fina rolled her organic eye at this, muttering something about an 'awful flirter'. The gangster continued and began to count off with his metallic fingers, whilst listing off, "An assassination of one of the most popular TV broadcasters, the destruction of one of the biggest brothels in the city and now demonic shadow demons."

Welshscot shrugged, which showed no disinterest or humour. "That happened after your date? Sod, we were trying to throw you and Fina a cockblock. It was you and Zackary, right?" Asked the hybrid, who was aiming this question at Fina, to which she nodded.

While he smiled, inwardly, for his friends' courage (Zackary usually couldn't string two words together when it came to relationship-talk), Welshscot quickly assessed his current state. Looking at his scaled arm, he saw that it was still healing from his encounter with Ivan. Everything from his finger tips to his elbow was its healthy green colour, while the bicep's scales were white and flaking. Judging by the faint smell of whiskey that was wafting from his arm, his friends had applied some alcohol to speed up his recovery. That, plus the fatigue he must have suffered when...'that' happened he estimated that he had been unconscious for two or three days.

The medic turned his head to Hjalmar, but was saved the trouble of asking since his friend, like he had read the hybrid's mind, began to explain. "Like Zackary said, Adam's dead, the Iron Domain is now rubble and that thing..."

Welshscot took a sharp breath, as the memory wafted before his mind's eye. He had seen that creature, that demon before and he knew who and what it was. But it was impossible, there was no way...

He sighed, deciding that it was best to face that problem another day. The hybrid, with his eyes on Hjalmar, silently made a gesture, asking the Norwegian to carry on talking. Though he had secretly wanted an answer, a conformation, the forensic continued giving him the news. "Anyway, Kelp and Lacy are safe and the Iron Queen is being kept under guard at the Knotcorn garage. She tried to bite her tongue when we placed her in her cell, but unlucky for her, I was around. She remains under close surveillance, in-case she tries to kill herself again. "

Welshscot wasn't surprised that the Iron Queen tried to end her own life. She always wanted to control everything around her, she would want to control how her life ended. A thought suddenly struck him, making him ask, "What about Caleb and the Rogues? Did their robbery go off smoothly?"

CJ was the one responded first, her face still showing irritation for the hybrid's comment against Rye. "They stole the Aloe Vera, but not very smoothly. Everyone knows it went down and everyone knows it was done by the Rogues. And Caleb apparently left some blood at the warehouse..."

"Which matched the DNA of Claudel Winchester," said Zackary, in a low, firm growl.

This was followed by another awkward silence, though the tension was lacking. The name Claudel Winchester was not a new name, since it belonged to a very powerful crime lord, but it was news that his blood matched a certain brown fox that had recently been apprenticed to the hybrid. But that fear and uncertainty only crept into the hearts of Rye, Hjalmar and Fina. Zackary only scowled, his mind still lingering with the image of the crime lord, CJ (though she tried to hide it) bit her lip while Welshscot just hung his head backwards.

In his head, his emotions' prison, comprehension and clarification whizzed around, banging against the insides of the hybrid's skull. Though words soon left his lips, emotion was still held back behind the medic's teeth, as he sighed, "So, Caleb's the son of a crime lord, huh? I was going with man-courtesan of some rich duchess, but oh well."

No one laughed or chuckled at the hybrid dry remark. Hjalmar and Rye exchanged a look of suspicion, wondering how Welshscot was taking the news so lightly, or as far as they could tell. Fina, on the other hand, spoke her feeling aloud. "How can you be so calm about it? How can we trust someone whose related to that man, to someone we barely know?"

The hybrid pushed himself up into a sitting position upon the bed, ignoring the slight groan of his muscles. "To answer your last question, I don't trust Caleb. From the moment I met him, he tried to manipulate my emotions. Also, if it weren't for his tail, he would be the next Gary Oldman."

Fina's organic eye shone, quizzically. "His tail? What has his tail got anything to do with being an actor?"

While looking at his green-scaled hand, flexing his scaled fingers, Welshscot began to explain in an emotionless, yet somehow enticing, monotone. "Mobians are said to be directly descended from the more primitive form of animal. Though mobians are humanoid, they retain some animal habits and sometimes don't even realise it. Long-tailed mobians, like dogs and foxes, have a habit of moving their tail in a certain way that matches their emotions."

Fina's blue electronic eye seemed to spark with understanding. "So, because they don't realise its happening, a long-tailed mobian's tail can show the true emotion of its owner. And if it contradicts the rest of the body..."

"...then that person is faking their emotions and lying," finished the ginger medic.

The bionic woman scratched the metal plate around her electronic eye, still puzzled by certain matters. In a questioning tone, she asked, "Then why did allow him to become your apprentice if he knew he was lying to you?"

Welshscot shrugged. "Everyone lies about something. Besides, this city needs another pro-mutant medic."

"But does it need a medic who's like his father?" Asked Metal Knuckles suddenly in a low, dry voice.

Welshscot turned his grey eyes to M Knucks acid green ones. "And to answer Fina's first question, the reason I'm calm is because I know that Caleb hates his dad like I hate my mum."

All eye brows were raised, but Hjalmar was the one to put the question forwards. "How do you know that?"

The hybrid tried to swing his legs off the bed, but they barely responded to his desire. So, while lying down again, the medic began to explain. "TD once told me that four years ago, during the Crimson Night, he heard a woman's scream coming from the Winchester household. By the time he got inside, Claudel had killed a woman, probably his wife. He was about to kill a young boy, but TD managed to stop him by gouging out Claudel's vocal chords with paint brushes." CJ shivered slightly. "Before he could finish him off, the boy screamed and distracted TD, giving Claudel time to get away." Welshscot's grey eyes slid over to the hacker. "Funny thing is I remember you letting slip that, four years ago, you were helping a 'giant unnamed group' with a witness protection program. You also said that you were annoyed that you used the name 'Caleb' three times."

The brunette glared at the hybrid irritably. "Oh, stop being a smartass. That's my job." When Welshscot didn't respond in his usual fashion, and as she felt the stare of Fina burn the back of her neck, the ex-cop hacker raised her arms in exasperation. "Okay, I knew that 'Caleb' was _one_ of the people I made a fake identity for, but that's all I did."

Fina crossed her arms, her blue robotic eye aimed at the brunette's chest, like it was piercing through the skin and clothing until the heart was shown. In reality, the bionic woman was just starring at her polygraph device that was installed in her eye. And it was clearly branding CJ as a liar. In an accusing tone, Fina muttered, "I find it interesting to see that all the empath I've ever met are liars."

CJ, looking outraged, was about to defend her statement...before she noticed that Hjalmar and Rye were all giving her a 'don't even bother' look. The nail in the coffin was when Welshscot said, "Gosh, even a complete stranger can see through you. You're losing your touch."

The hacker seemed to deflate, her head lowering like a child who had just been caught smearing paint over the walls. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Fina's aura. It was mostly a sunset red, irritation about wanting to see or know something now, but there were other shades to her aura. Amongst the misty white of uncertainty and the light carrying hazel, the hacker could see a huge chunk of dark red. CJ has seen this many times, that odd patch of colour that stuck out in people's auras, to people who had suffered the loss of a loved one.

She could feel the emotions, feel them slowly ebb at her heart, but she had no real hold on them. Unlike most empath, all CJ could do was observe the emotions, not change and manipulate them like a normal empath. That's why she felt so powerless, useless, out of her depth when she was outnumbered, forced to speak truth she wanted to keep hidden...

"Does it really matter?"

CJ's head snapped upwards, her eyes joining the observation of Rye; who was brandishing another sly grin that threw his scars into the light. In his slow undertone, the chef continued, "So the boy has a fake identify, we already know the gist of his past. His mother is dead and his father is an insane, mute maniac. Who would want to talk about a past like that?"

"But that mute maniac is Claudel Winchester," replied Fina, in an angry tone. "How can we trust anyone related to him, especially someone who has lied to us—?"

"—and helped us," added Rye. "He did help save that boy you told me about. Tails, wasn't it?" Fina opened her mouth, as if trying to find the right words to combat the chef's point, then closed it, her face still etched with annoyance. Seeing his chance, Rye continued talking, diverting the conversation away from CJ. "And another thing, I don't trust this boy either. How can I, I haven't met him yet. But I do trust Welshscot..." He gestured to the blank-faced medic. "And even though you're...different, I'm willing to bet the Chi Tai Eat that you're still the boy who looked past an axe murder's mask and found a person inside. "

Welshscot starred at the scared man with his grey eyes, beating back the urge to smile or any real show of emotion. Despite the dismissive attitude he had shown earlier, the hybrid was really glad to see Rye again. But it was what he owned, the Chi Tai Eat, the place that he had shared with Welshscot and his friends and their father's friends that brought about ill feelings inside the medic. What he had once called home was now just an empty reminder of his loss, a place where his emotions barriers would be tested to breaking point. And he needed those barriers, he needed his mask...

He turned his eyes away from the chef, just as he turned the current topic away. Directing his voice at Zackary, the hybrid asked, "Speaking of TD, have you been in contact with him?" The leader of the Nocturnes wouldn't have answered Welshscot's question if there hadn't been that slight hint of regret, a hint that he was touched by what the chef had said. And that brought a slight smile to Rye's scarred lips.

"Nope," stated M Knucks, grimly. "He hasn't made contact at all." Pushing himself off Welshscot's bed, the red-head got to his feet. "Can't wait till he does, though. Truth is nobody even knows if Adam's really dead. His body hasn't been found yet. "

After another failing of tying to move his legs off the bed, the hybrid raised a mental eye brow that only he could visualise. "Then how can you call it an assassination? How do you know TD did anything to him?"

Zackary gave a small bark of laughter. "Because he made a bloody appearance on Adam's show while it was broadcasting. TD gave me the heads up so I knew it was gonna happen, so me and Fina ended our data early to catch Mecha's show. We had to endure five minutes of Mecha and his guest, the _honourable _High Jude Nega..." He spat on the floor. "...slagging you off, by practically screaming 'The Cult of Argus is behind the graveyard incident, Welshscot is like his mother'..."

He paused, his eyes observing the hybrid with caution. For when he said those last words, Welshscot's left hand bawled into a fist that began to shake with suppressed rage. Hjalmar, seeing the unsavoury emotions that had managed to break from its prison, gently put one of his gloved hands onto the medic's shoulder. Jumping slightly from the Norwegian's cold touch, Welshscot looked at his hooded friend, whose hidden face shone with reassurance. This somehow managed to rid Welshscot of his anger, his fist loosening, his rage vanishing.

Emotionless once more, Welshscot looked back at Zackary, who at once continued his story. "They then began to verbally attack Trevor's- I mean Tails' performance in the first race." Everyone but Fina was curious to why Metal Knuckles had called Tails Trevor, but they held in their questions and allowed the red-head to continue.

"This led to a brief conversation about my old guard squad, the Metalix Guard, and they talked mostly about one member in particular, Amadeus Prower. He was Tails' father..." He exchanged a slight glance with Fina, who gave him a small nod, before ploughing on, hesitantly, "Adam and Nega...they then suggested that Amadeus...is..."

"The Tails Doll?" Asked Welshscot, bluntly. The faces of the red-heads gave him the answer, both to Adam's suggestion and the stone cold truth, but the hybrid still showed no shock or surprise over this news. "I always suspected as much," the medic began to explain. "I've always known he was one of the Metalix Guards, but I didn't want to invade his privacy to make sure."

CJ looked bewildered. "What are you talking about? Just because the whole population managed to get a glimpse at his mask, which apparently looks like foxtrot's father, doesn't mean it is him..."

"It's him," interrupted Fina. "Zackary told me the truth. I thought it was..." She paused for a second, tittering on the word in her mouth, which caused her to sniff silently. After composing herself, she continued in a clam yet firm tone. "TD is Amadeus, just like Terri is Metal Soni-"

"Tull!" (*2)

The bionic woman was given a shock, when Hjalmar suddenly growled his curse. CJ and Rye both looked apprehensive while Zackary sighed in resignation at the Norwegian's outburst. Welshscot, with his blank face, looked up at his friend and muttered, "Hjalmar, calm down."

The red-head's ears pricked when she heard Hjalmar's name, apparently for the first recent time. "Hjalmar," Said Fina in a surprised whisper. "Your name's Hjalmar? Eyulf's son, the boy that Terri looked after?" Even though the Forensic didn't make any conformation, as he glared at her venomously, Fina knew it was him.

Thankfully, Rye managed once more to turn the conversation away from dangerous waters. Without glancing at the irritated Norwegian or the apprehensive red-head, he hurriedly finished the tale. "Anyway, TD then burst onto the set and killed some of the guards while 'Can you feel the sunshine' played over the speakers. Nega and Adam managed to escape; only Nega was found..." He scratched his scarred chin. "...And that's pretty much all we know." The chef then clapped his hands together in a 'we're done here' sort of way and began to address the hacker and Norwegian. "CJ, Hjalmar! I think we can all agree that Welshscot is fine. But he would be better with some good old Tom Ka Gai (*2). In fact, you all should have soup."

Even though his happy tone sounded natural and not forced, the chef still exchanged a small look of urgency with the hacker, his dark eyes darting from her to Hjalmar with slight hesitance. Getting the message, the brunette brandished an abnormally wide smile and put an arm around Hjalmar. "Come on," she cried in an overly excited tone. "Let's help Rye with the soup!"

With that she managed to steer the Norwegian out of the room, which was met with little resistance from the masked man himself. He did give Fina and Zackary a piercing glare before he was shuffled through the door, but he didn't say a word as Rye followed the duo through the doorway and closed it behind them.

For a whole minute, the bionic woman starred at the door, as if her electronic eye could see past the wood, as if she could still see the picture of the masked-man's ice cold glare. It was only when Zackary pushed himself off the end of Welshscot's bed did her real eye begin to focus back into reality.

"That kid is never gonna get it through his head," sighed the gangster as he walked towards one of the lily patterned wall. He raised his hand and placed a metal palm against the wall, his face overcast with gloom. "He will end up like Eyulf, obsessing over the past and letting it control his life..."

"Hjalmar isn't like that," said Welshscot in his usual blank tone. As he tried to shift his legs once more, he continued, saying, "It's just the Terri he knew wouldn't have backstabbed his friend."

"Nor did I," scoffed Zackary.

"He didn't see what you saw."

Zackary didn't reply to that. He simply pushed himself off the wall, turning to Fina who was still looking slightly dazed. When the gangster's acid green eyes fell upon Fina's face, her own eyes slowly turned to match the gaze of her friend. The bionic woman gave a small cough before speaking, in a far away tone. "So, this place..." She gestured at the surrounding walls, "...Was Eyulf's and Owen's famous Private Ingestions Agency?"

"Yep," replied Zackary, who seemed glad to be able to use his friend's query as a way to drop the previous subject. "But technically it was always owned by Rye, since he runs the restaurant downstairs. Owen and Eyulf just paid their rents and ran the agency on this floor. That was until..."

"...Mammoth Moguls' murder spree..." Finished Fina, her organic eye turning slightly dim as she muttered those words.

Metal Knuckles' fingers fidgeted, the metallic digits clenching with brief anger before releasing his stress by channelling it into a sigh. "After that, it goes just like Owen told us. Eyulf kicked Owen and M—" He caught himself from speaking that hated name, which would have riled up the hybrid no end. "...Anyway, they both left to raise their child," He pointed over his shoulder at the medic, who was still trying to swing his legs off the bed. "And practically abandoned his own child, Hjalmar. Hell, if not for Rye and Terri, I bet Eyulf would have sent him to an orphanage."

Fina gapped in shock. "Wings of Enil, I knew Eyulf was an uncaring sod at the best of times, but how could he treat his own son like that?" The redhead then pressed her organic fingers against her temple, as if trying to wade through the memories of a foggy, unfamiliar time. "In fact, I've only heard about Hjalmar because Terri told me about him when we used to meet up at Rosemary's house after our high school days."

Zackary moved closer to Fina, while one of his metallic hands rubbed his chin, like an archaeologist rubbing the dust off an old and forgotten tablet. "Oh, Terri was looking after that kid long before we met you at the school. When Terri was thirteen, he apparently found the kid by a dumpster, crying his eyes over a broken scalpel. He had tried to run away because Eyulf, after coming back from one of his long cases, went crazy when he discovered that his son had been dissecting dead cats."

Fina would have only been slightly unnerved by this, if she hadn't seen the state of the sitting room next door. _Clearly, _she thought in a chilled-inner monotone, _he hasn't grown out of that habit._ Despite now having more uneasy feelings for the masked Norwegian, she allowed Zackary to continue his story.

"Now Rye tried to keep Eyulf calm, but he only managed to stop Eyulf from hurting Hjalmar after he had taken the kid's scalpel and snapped it in two. Hjalmar, tired of living in the same place as his father who rarely talks or plays with him, grabbed the broken knife and ran into the rain. Luckily, before something bad happened, Terri stumbled across the kid and got him to safety." A small smile began to curl around the edge of the gangster's face. "He always knew how to handle youngsters, even ones he didn't even know. What did Amadeus used to call him, again?"

A ghost smile was quick to drift across the bionic woman's lips, as she said, reminiscently, "The 'loner man-dad'." The red-head then gulped as another face, a painfully familiar face, drifted before her mind's eye. "T-that what they both said, him and Da..."

CREAK!

As one, the reminiscent red-heads jumped at the unexpected noise. Though not a coward, Fina couldn't help but let a tiny squeak of terror escape her lips, while Zackary grunted like a startled bull. Having journeyed so far down memory lane, they had almost forgotten that Welshscot was still in the room, and had seemed to have mustered up the strength to swing his legs off the bed and pushed himself onto the edge in a sitting position.

Looking down at certain floor board, which must have made the unsettling sound when the hybrid's bare feet landed on the loose board, the medic began to speak with his emotion-free voice. "You know, I've always found it astounding that Hjalmar, CJ and I manage to call this place home despite our history with this place." Welshscot then raised his head to look at the two red-heads, gazing at them with his stone-like eyes. "But when push came to shove, we all agreed this was our home. Hell, even Alina..."

At that moment, Fina fought she saw the stone mask crumble away from the hybrid's face. And in that moment, she saw a longing and sadness that almost mirrored her own, though it seemed to be laced with a darker tone of purpose. All of which was missed by her bionic eye, her advanced optic, while her organic iris had managed to glimpse so much more.

However, the stone soon reformed and the mask was back in place. Without further hesitation, Welshscot quickly asked, "By the way, how is Tails? Rye said he was okay..."

As if he had flipped a switch, Fina and Zackary suddenly remembered a subject of dire importance: "Tails!" It took no time at all to for the duo to fill in the medic with the vulpine's situation. "Tikal suspects that it is PTSD, but she ain't sure." Explained Metal Knuckles. "The Aloe Vera has patched him up, but he panicked like a trapped mouse when he tried to go outside and had to be sedated." He glared at Welshscot, his eyes bubbling with seriousness. "Welsh-Doc, I want your word that you'll cure him as soon as you're able."

"I'll do my best," replied the physiatrist in his barren, empty drawl.

"You better," growled the gangster, his voice bearing a knife's edge. "Tails is in this state because I didn't look out for him and I don't want to fail him or his parent because of some punk kid. So if you screw up..."

"Zackary," cut in the medic, his emotionless voice now bearing great weight. "You knew my dad and you know me. Do you really think I would half-ass a friend in need? Heck, would you think I would be able to turn down any person in need?"

The gangster chuckled, sheepishly. "No, not unless that person was Ivan or Achaz." His chuckle soon died, replaced by his previous sombre expression. "But anyways, I also want your thoughts on two other things concerning Miles..." Zackary then began to move towards Welshscot slowly, walking away from the lass behind him who was beginning to wear a disgruntled face, her bionic eye flickering from passive blue to infuriating red.

With curiosity that hid deep inside, the hybrid waited for his metal-fisted friend to stop by his bed and speak. When he did, the gangster spoke in a low, hushed tone that suggested that he didn't want Fina to hear their conversation. "Listen, when Tails asks you, can you not reveal that Tails Doll is his Amadeus or that Fina and I know that he is his father?"

It took a moment for the medic to reply, his emotionless eyes gazing deep into M Knucks' irises of acid, before giving a small nod. Zackary, for a second, wondered why Welshscot had taken so long to respond to his question. But he ploughed on, asking his next query with an even lower voice, his eyes darting to their corners to check if Fina wasn't eavesdropping. "Welshscot...I need your opinion on this. I don't want to invade Tails' private life, but I want to keep an eye on him. I'm gonna ask Shade to use her shadow eyes ability to keep tabs on him..." He gave a sharp intake of breath, trying to find the will to continue his question. "...Please, be honest, does this sound like the act of a creepy, over protective uncle?"

The ginger medic didn't even need to think about his answer. Without missing a beat, Welshscot promptly shouted out, "M Knucks, what kind of question is that?" The surprised red-head didn't even have time to construct an indignant response, before the hybrid, with all his strength, pushed himself onto his feet. "Listen, the both of you, Tails—" But before he could speak, his weakened legs gave out from under him. Zackary, with astounding reflexes, managed to push the hybrid back onto the bed before he hit the floor. Though the medic was still groaning in pain, thanks to his flimsy legs, he still managed to hide all visual expressions of pain. Fina had to admit, as she hurried over to the bed to see if the medic needed help, that the ginger was very committed to stopping his emotions show.

Welshscot, undaunted by his screw up, straightened himself on his bed and, while ignoring the pain in his legs, continued his rant at the two red-heads. "Like I was saying, Tails obviously has a private life and I myself wouldn't want someone like Shade spying on me. But he's clearly getting himself into deep shit. Cage, he has a grudge against Eggman, if I'm not mistaken. Being beaten up by that MarDean priciwch and that attempt by Metal Sonic proves that people are after him. Your want to keep him safe has nothing to do with being a 'creepy relative'." Metal Knuckles gave a small, rough laugh. But he looked a lot more comfortable and confidant than before.

Fina, however, pursed her lips and crossed her arms. "But having him watched 24/7 is just wrong and messed up. How can we put Miles through that, especially if that b- Shade is the one who's doing it?"

"Shade, though she's a bitch, is still professional," replied the hybrid. "She wouldn't try and do anything creepy or disturbing and would just do her job, keep an eye on Tails and make sure we know danger before it hits him. And though I agree with you, its messed up, but TD can't always protect him. And I think he would agree to this, he would want us to protect his kin as much as possible."

The bionic woman opened her mouth to complain, but then she closed it. She knew if TD was who she thinks he was then this is what he would want, the worst case scenario response.

At that moment, the door opened again and Hjalmar's mask poked into the room. "Hey, Rye wants to know if you want chilli if your soups." His voice sounded like he had calmed down and there were no angry wrinkles in his mask. He even looked at Fina when he had asked his question...or at least it looked like it. The bionic woman did look a bit sheepish when she looked at the forensic's mask, but she gave a sensible nod along with Zackary and hybrid.

Hjalmar did take in this knowledge, but he hinted that had come for more than that when he continued to move into the room. "Welsh," he began in a low and apprehensive voice. "CJ managed to buy some new clothes for you while you were out. Don't worry, they're second-hand and look as scruffy as you do." He continued to walk closer to the bed, passing by Fina and Zackary until he was right next to the medic, who was looking up at Hjalmar with his emotionless eyes. "She also managed to find a collection of alcohol, so the wine racks are full so you won't clean them out in a hurry..."

At these words, Welshscot worked out what the true purpose of Hjalmar's visit was, and he didn't like it. He even let slipped a small growl, a bark of emotion that would have made the less calm and collective person to flinch. Even though Hjalmar did no such thing, he still had to endure the emotionless response of the hybrid, which was hiding a pure bitterness behind each word.

"Hjalmar, I am not moving into the Chi Tai Eat."

The forensic face, though he wore a mask, seemed to deflate with disappointment. "Come on, Welsh," he pleaded, while sitting himself down on the bed. "CJ has already moved all of her equipment into her old room. Heck, I've been here for a couple of months—"

"After living with the Freedom Fighters for the past two years," finished the hybrid, who was seemingly struggling to keep his emotions hidden. "We all left here after the Crimson Night, after—"

"No!" Cut in the Norwegian, who was starting to get angry. "You're the one who ran away! CJ and I had to stay and help so we had to move around the city. We had no choice but to leave Rye, but now we are coming back and you should too!"

"That's another thing," growled the medic, his voice now dangerously close to showing emotion. "Why do you want to come back to this place? When we all first decided to live here, six or seven years ago, you were the one who didn't want to live here, to continue your dad's agency."

"You mean our dads."

Welshscot rolled his eyes, the weakest part of his mask giving away to sarcasm. "No, it was your dad who ran the agency, ever since the Mogul murders. My dad, meanwhile, was being put on the back seat of my mother's priority list while he suffered from his Dementia Syndrome. You know I spent most of my youth making sure he didn't hurt himself when he had his episodes." As each word was spoken, his voice became more and more emotional, his mask barely keeping itself together. "So don't you tell me, don't you even try to say I have any obligations to your dad's fucking agency!"

Hjalmar's gloved fist, which had been clenched a few moments ago, relaxed itself and released its fingers from their clenched form. When he spoke, it was with a cool, icy tone that only the forensic could pull off. "Obligation to my father? No, I would sooner ask you to give yourself to Iblis than do a favour for him. But you do owe something to Rye, we all do. No matter how hard she denies it, CJ respects Rye ever since he helped her break away from her parent's control. He did his best to make my time as a kid here enjoyable before I met Terri..."

"And I had to pay off his rent with my job," scoffed the hybrid.

That comment almost made Hjalmar snap. In an instant, his hand had flown to his belt where he kept his knives, stopping only an inch from the handle. "That's not fair, Welshald," he growled, his husky nature taking control. "You know Rye doesn't get many customers and nor did I back in the day. We relied on you to help pay the bills and you knew Rye never liked not being able to support himself."

"And he still doesn't," replied the hybrid, his tone becoming obscure and emotionless once more. "I've been sending him money over the past two years. I know he can't pay to keep this place open—"

"And you still had a go at him, when he tried to talk to you when you woke up!" His fingers were now on a knife, a dark gleam glinting from his sun-shaped lense that lay over his right eye. "For the love of Argus, do you think Owen would be proud of how you treat one of his oldest friends? Do you think Alina would have approved of that?"

It was the hybrid's turn to show emotion, as his scaled arm began to shake. Then, without warning, his hand flashed to his trousers. The forensic, seeing this, pulled out the knife from his belt. Like a pair of swords clashing, the two slammed their hands against the others. Hjalmar, armed with a fierce knife while Welshscot brandished...a fifty pence coin.

The forensic was startled by this, his eyes gazing at the familiar coin. But he was more shocked when he saw the medic's face, the medic's true face. And at that moment, Hjalmar knew that all the harsh and dismissive words Welshscot had spoken had been false, a part of his stone mask which had now slipped off his face. His grey eyes were slowly reddening and his face seemed to slag with sadness and regret.

"Alina..." he whispered his voice shaky and tearful. "Would have wanted me to what I wanted to do, of my own decision." As he spoke, his grey eyes gazed intently at the small fifty pence piece in his hand. A single tear managed to escape and crawl down his cheek, relishing its freedom from the stone mask. He then turned his gaze to Hjalmar, who was still in shock at seeing the true face of his friend. "I don't want to stay here," he choked. "It's just not the same..."

The Norwegian looked at his friend, his hidden face ripe with pity. Deep down, he was glad to see that his friend was still there, that his emotionless mask can be discarded. But if it meant seeing this, this image of sadness and regret or of anger and rage, then was it worth it?

He lowered his knife and put it back into his belt, while Welshscot kept his hand in the air, still gazing at the coin in his hand. "I know," spoke Hjalmar softly. "It will never be the same. But we all need you. I can understand why you don't want to come back, but..." He paused, trying to find the right words, trying to avoid that certain word.

"You 'want' me to stay," he drawled, his tone sounding resigned and disdainful. Along with that came the slow re-masking. His tear dribbled off his face like it had been repelled and his eyes lost their red quality, becoming like stone once again.

"No," firmly stated Hjalmar, who didn't want the use of that word to be the thing that won over his friend. "We'd like you to stay, Rye, CJ and me...And, and I'll make you stay."

Welshscot managed to show confusion to his friend's statement, before his mask finally fell back into place. And a good thing to, for the medic would have folded his resistance in an instant. For Hjalmar had tilted his head to one-side and began...to pine. Not too high, not too low and it was just the right pitch to melt a heart. And though you couldn't see his face, you could tell that he was perfectly executing...

The puppy eyes.

Husky-styled puppy eyes.

It took Welshscot all of his will power not to give into the damn cuteness of his friend's trick. His stone face was under fierce attack and it may be soon crippled. With a strained voice that still somehow managed to retain emotion, the medic mumbled, "T-that doesn't work on me anymore..."

"WELL IT WORKS ON ME! STAY, DAMN IT, STAY!"

To the surprise of both Welshscot and Hjalmar, Fina (who they had totally forgotten about) had suddenly grabbed the front of the medic's shirt and began to shake him violently. The two young men had obviously underestimated the power of the Norwegian's puppy eyes on females.

But this ultimately worked in the Norwegian's favour. As Fina's organic and metallic hands continued to shake down the ginger's defences, the said medic quickly cried defeat. "OK, OK, I'LL STAY, I'LL STAY!"

Metal Knuckles, while laughing at the antics of his old friend, began to pull her off the medic. "Calm down, Fina," chuckled the gangster. "I know you want to win Hjalmar's heart, be he's way too young for you. And he's gay to boot." The bionic woman blushed madly and couldn't bear to see Zackary's teasing face. But she still found the time to try and playfully push M Knucks away from her.

Hjalmar watched the two red-heads joke around for a second before turning back to his friend. "Hey, Welsh, did you really mean that? You are gonna stay?" Asked the Norwegian in a slightly desperate tone.

The hybrid didn't answer at first, since his priorities drastically changed. When Fina had been pulled off him, the physiatrist realised that he had dropped Alina's coin. But this sudden worry was short lived, and the coin was soon in the palm of his scaled hand. It took a long time for Welshscot to take his eyes of the coin, while his mind tried to construct his answer.

"Yea," finally came his reply, as he carefully put his coin in his pocket. "I must admit, its tiring having to swap from place to place. And I do miss you guys."

Though the hybrid had said this in his emotionless tone, Hjalmar still smiled widely. And as they all began to head downstairs to the main restaurant, where four bowls of Tom Kai Gai were awaiting them, the forensic couldn't help but see the future brighten.

_**R/L/A/N: I hope that was entertaining for you all. I am sorry for being such a drop out, especially to you Domi. I hope to be update soon, and I hope I can make them good. **_

_**Until next time, don't fall prey to puppy eyes :)**_

*1: Norwegian for bullshit

*2: Thai chicken and coconut milk soup.


	32. Dusk to Dawn

**domi|note: **Alright, so apparently some people have got my gender confused again. I'm a _girl_. Yep! I know it's hard to believe but I have boobs, I wear skirts and I can write yaoi pr0n without getting embarrassed and guilty. I think I said something along those lines in _It's a Technician Thing_. Has writing for the Sonic fandom made me any more masculine, I wonder? I never got mistaken when I was writing for Kingdom Hearts.

Oh, and thank you guys _soo_ much for 300+ reviews! In the beginning, I actually didn't think this would be that popular, because it wasn't an easy-to-read drabble and the plot is more than a little complicated, but then I got you guys and **Welsh **and **Pixelated Firefly** and AoODD became a joy to write. So I just needed to say you guys are bloody awesome, and I hope you stick with me for the rest of this fic… which is estimated to be pretty damn long.

I wrote this chapter right up until Welshscot's therapy session. The rest is his.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **SmallSpek**, **Fanfic412**, **Exploder**, **insidious fanboy**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **LordCooler**, **Undead009** and**DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the last (filler) chapter.

_Fanfic412-_ Not currently, but I will be in a few chapters time. All you've got to do is fill out a profile character analysis for me… and somehow send it to me. See? This is the problem.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. ~Bob Marley<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Two  
>.<em>  
>"Every time when I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face getting clearer. The past is gone. It went by, like dusk to dawn. Isn't that the way, everybody's got the dues in life to pay."<br>…_  
>Who Are You Now? <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>"I honestly <em>cannot<em> understand how one falls asleep on the rooftop of an almost abandoned skyscraper."

"As of right this second, Heartnet, your input is no longer welcomed."

"What do you mean 'As of right this second'? It was _never _welcomed."

"As if that's going to stop him."

"I mean, sex under the stars may be romantic and all, but it holds most of the impractical difficulties as sex in the shower."

"No, it doesn't."

"_Don't _encourage him."

"Just ignore him. Just ignore him. Just ignore him."

"We did not have _sex!_"

"I'm _fourteen_."

"Didn't stop me."

"Mhmm."

"Shut up, Silver."

"I wasn't being _sarcastic!_"

"Wow! You didn't say 'The White One'! What an achievement. You deserve a pat on the back."

"I said '_Shut up',_Snippy. Or does the message elude you?"

"I wouldn't say elude, Doll face, rather 'phase through'."

"Go to Hell."

"What's that smell?"

"That rhymes!"

"A little feisty there, aren't we Prower?"

"How easy would it be to knock you _off_ that ledge you're so precariously balancing on?"

"Silver would save me, wouldn't you, Honey?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"It's Silver by the way- the smell? On the way here, we gallivanted about naked before I deflowered him in a bed of roses."

_"YOU DIE NOW!"_

"But, we're _best buds_, are we not, Muffin?"

"_Fuck_ no."

"But what about the time I emptied the garbage for you… um… Raisin bread?"

"It had my dinner, video games and magazines _inside._"

"Did it now?"

"_Yes!"_

"God, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"You bet."

"The one _without_ a girl in it."

"Here Prower, don't involve yourself in the conversation or else he'll give you an embarrassing nickname too."

"'Kitty' is already an embarrassing nickname."

"Why do you smell like that, Silver?"

"We ran out of shampoo, Shadow, Sonic, Knuckles, Amy and I have had to share her shampoo, since it's the only one for quills left in the building."

"Is that why you smell like Spring breeze?"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

They shared a brief laugh before Tails decided to finally build up a situation that had semblance to 'sense' in his head. He'd been so tired after trying to scale this rooftop last night that he'd fallen asleep soon after Wave had let the cranes go. Wave had stayed with him, just to make sure he'd be alright. Silver and Caleb had been on their way to Rapidi Solis to start work when they'd come across Wave and Tails snoozing on this sky scraper.

"This is about as awkward as the time I walked in on my Academy buddies talking about lesbian gummi worm sex."

"Do you even _think_ about the shit that comes out of your mouth?"

"If shit was coming out of my mouth, then the best cause of action would be to see a doctor."

"She was speaking about word vomit."

"Vomit doesn't taste very good either, Sweetie."

"God, you're _infuriating._"

"Aww, Snookums. Come here, I have cuddles and lollipops that will make it better."

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

"We don't exactly have time to write a novel."

"What are you talking about? I'm perfect in every way… Pumpkin."

"In that 'everybody's special' kind of way."

"Oh, by the way Tails, we've gone and run out of coffee."

"Oh… that would explain _everything_."

"Don't you have _work_ to be doing?"

"Yeah, we should get going."

"Wait a second," Wave and Caleb shared a slightly wary look, "Heartnet, weren't you on the night shift as well?"

Caleb had had a similar conversation with Marine while Tails was in his trance… how… curious.

"Um… we've gotta get going, haven't we?"

"Yeah, or else Boss will hand our asses to us on a silver platter," Silver growled. "Make sure Tails makes it back to the garden centre, alright, yeah?"

"Toodles!"

"Shut the _fuck_ up, Heartnet!"

"What? I'm just saying goodbye!"

"Sorry guys, this is the result of some coffee-deprived insomnia."

"Move aside! I'm a free spirit! Save the whales! Stop ACTA! Make love not war!"

"Oh Solaris…"

That was rather… confusing. Still, he returned to The Garden Centre smiling, content. That was until Wave said she needed to go. After she was gone the shivers started to wrack him again, and it wasn't until Tikal found him in the hallways that he felt better again. His heart sunk and he felt like crying again. For a few blissful hours, he'd had temporary relief, but he was still just as broken inside.

Every single time he closed his eyes, all he could see was MarDean's smirk and that rusty old knife. He slumped against the wall dejectedly, wondering if this was all his life had to offer now. Would he ever get over this gnawing _fear?_Or was he subjected to live under its rule for the rest of his life?

"Tikal… you wouldn't know anyone that could… _erase _memories, would you?"

The orange echidna shrugged, "They're nicknamed 'Oblitens'."

"Yeah, but… do you know any?"

Tikal rubbed her hands over her eyes, "Now Tails, you probably already know that dealing with people that control the body is risky business. Half of them don't know how to control their power, and it's because of this reputation that they don't get any practice with everyone else, meaning that most of them don't know how to take away the _right_ amount of memory. You might ask them to get rid of the MarDean memory, and they might accidentally take away all of your knowledge on Extreme Gear."

"But… I'm so _sick_ and tired of being sick and tired. I want to see my friends again. I need to speak to Sonic and I have to get my board ready for-"

"You're not actually thinking of continuing in the Grand Prix!" she asked worriedly.

"Ah, yeah… stupid of me," he lied. "But I still need to keep up the maintenance for the rest of my friends. I normally wouldn't ask anyone of this but… is there some kind of 'quick fix' power that would make me better?"

"Well," she murmured, cleaning up the mess he'd made with the aloe vera bottle the night before, "normally I wouldn't recommend this, but… Caleb did mention something useful the other day."

"Caleb's power only works for as long as he's concentrating," Tails explained, _Which isn't very long anyway._

"No, no. He was mentioning that he has a _friend_ that can control and manipulate nightmares and fears," she explained.

"Why'd you say it like that? Is it a girlfriend or something?" he settled back into his cot, trying to get comfortable. Hospital cots were tiresome.

"She's a human. Besides. He isn't like that." There was a sparkle of mirth in her clear blue eyes that he was immediately suspicious over. He was _never_ going to figure Caleb out.

"Isn't like what?" Tails asked, clearly confused as to why Tikal was using such a vague tone. She withheld a snicker, which only served to make him more irritated.

"Don't worry about it… Actually now that I think about it, it wouldn't be a good idea."

"What?" Tails asked, disappointment shining in his eyes. "Why?"

"You mean apart from the fact that she's volatile and inclined to humiliating, degrading treatment? Plus the fact that she's incredibly prone to violence?"

"Why?"

Tikal paused a second, probably trying to recall the information, "Heartnet said that she was involved in the last mission of The Crimson Night, and she returned from that _changed_ with unique powers, that of which are the only kind in Soleanna. She had them _before_ The Crimson Night, but they came back… altered, distorted. Darker. Because of what she was put through, she often suffers from hallucinations and is generally bitter and crude. She isn't the kind of person you'd want to associate with, is she?"

"Well, if she can help me with my problem, then I'd be happy to endure her. Can you tell me her name?"

"Before I do… do you know about the GUN agent that disappeared for two years because she needed to be contained in the mental facility?"

"Yes," Tails nodded. He knew The Crimson Night did _really_ horrible things to people, but this was one of the accidentally publicised cases. "'They' caught her and performed experiments on her that her mind was altogether unready for, and she ended up going on a murderous rampage because of it, targeting people 'they' considered enemies."

"And GUN felt guilty because of it, allowing one of their best agents to get caught like that and letting her become a pawn for 'their' enjoyment. She's a lot better now, but I overheard the bat and Caleb speaking about the fact that she won't-"

"Wait a second… is this the _same_ girl?"

"He didn't exactly _state_ it, but I'm pretty sure it's the same woman. I'd bet these aloe bottles that they're talking about Leilani Cesario. Still on GUN active duty and researching something about a Solean myth that everyone else thinks is totally insane. She's even been labelled safe enough to train a student, some unfortunate boy named Chris , as I was saying, Rouge and Caleb mentioned that she doesn't want to take medication for her hallucinations and go to self-help meetings about her violence tendencies."

"Really?" Tails had always wanted to know more about The Crimson Night, but GUN had kept it under wraps once the whole fiasco was finished with.

"So it wouldn't be a good idea to confront her, especially when _she_ needs a psychiatrist more than you do. Rouge, Caleb and her student have been trying to get her to see WelshScot, but she considers him another form of medication and wants nothing to do with him."

"So… does that mean there isn't anything that I can do?"

"I'm only a doctor, Tails. And I might not know enough about mental states, but sometimes, it's best to heal naturally."

He sighed, _Typical of Tikal._

"Thanks. For all you've done."

Now there was nothing to do but sit down, wait, and find something _else_ to occupy his mind.

"Oi! Get in here, or was M Knucks just kidding about you needing therapy?"

The fox spun round, his eyes and ears both telling him that a certain ginger haired medic he hadn't seen for an age was standing in a doorway; wearing his blank face but using an irritated tone that seemed out of place. Also, Welshscot was now wearing a deep blue jacket (which had the right sleeve torn off to reveal his bandaged arm), a white undershirt and a pair of trousers that were a horrid mix of red and green. But like his last choice of clothing, it was all tatty and dirty; but at least there was a decreases of the number of holes and split seams.

Tails was thinking many things when the reality of the medic's presence; hope that MarDean would no longer plague his thoughts, fears that, despite of Welshscot's efforts, that his fears would remain. But the one that seemed to bring him as much joy as well as fear was a single piece of knowledge: Welsh was a known friend/accomplice of the Tails Doll. He would know if the mysterious axe murder was father or not...

SMACK!

The fox yelped in surprise as pain flashed across his cheek. He did not have time to recover before Welshscot's voice sounded, "That was from Bunnie; she thinks you were stupid to go out alone but the slap was for not staying in contact for the last four years. This..." Welshscot then flicked Tails on the head, "...is from Antoine; he said the same thing...I think..."

Before the fox could make a sound of protest, the medic suddenly pulled the mechanic into a tight, bone braking hug. "This is from Sally and Nicole..." He released the hug; only to slap Tails again and then punch him in the gut. "...In that order. Sally also wants to know why Sonic wasn't with you, why you made friends with a douche bag like Caleb and if you're still eating your veg. Nicole said the exact same thing, not including the veg; but she also wants you to see if you can get a story or tale from the Babylon Rouges."

Having recovered from the last two blows, Tails was preparing to duck or dodge any further attacks; but all the medic did next was grab the fox's right hand and shake it, which he then repeated with Tails's left hand. Whilst he gave him the hurried handshakes, Welshscot continued to speak, saying in order of his actions, "A freedom fighter named Kelp sends his regards and sympathy, so does another FF named Lacy, and Rotor asks if you're okay."

With that, Welshscot turned on his heels and headed towards the door frame he had first appeared under. He stopped by the open door and looked back at the two-tailed mechanic,who was still recovering from the random assault that he had received from the medic. When he managed to revive his power of speech, his first words were: "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"

Welshscot, while keeping his face still and unreadable, replied calmly and business like, "'That' was me passing on a message from the FF. So for the benefit of our session, can you please remember the saying don't shoot the messenger." He then turned towards the door. "Now, if can please follow me." Though his anger and annoyance was still throbbing like the spot on his body that had just been struck, Tails did as he was asked and followed the medic into his room.

The word cheap seemed to be the best word to describe this small room. A bedroom and kitchen all in one, everything from the bed to the table, which was set on its side against the wall, looked used and poor quality; just like the clothes that hung from Welshscot's body. The only thing that looked comfortable were the three chairs that were set in a in the middle of the room, which face one smaller chair that looked like it would break apart the moment someone sit upon it.

Luckily, when Welshscot casually sat down upon the dwarfish chair, it did not cave in under the psychiatrist weight. His face still absent of emotion, Welshscot's green eyes gazed at the fox and gestured towards the three chairs. "Pick one and sit down; I want to get this over with."

Tails clenched his fists, but did not say anything. He did not know why Welshscot's voice sounded so dismissive, like he thought that Tails's trauma was just an annoying email that he had to read for the sake of his job, but would then delete it the moment he had done what he needed to do. It was hard to read the man, but he was giving off the feeling you'd see on a nurse's face while she pulled out her phone, still chewing gun in her mouth, when a patient was desperately trying to get her attention.

Keeping his anger at bay, he walked towards the chairs and, after a quick examination of them all, sat down on the chair furthest from the door. After that, silence filled the room; even the sound of breathing was faint to the ear. Tails, as he waited for Welshscot to speak, began to shuffle in his chair; which was nowhere near comfortable but had something about it that made him feel relaxed. He never had a therapy session before and didn't know what to expect. But so far the image he had prior to this moment, of him lying down on a couch while Welshscot took notes, seemed stupid.

Finally, after what seemed an age, Welshscot made a slow, yet sudden, move towards his belt's pouch. Tails' blue eyes were fixed upon the medic's bandaged fingers, as they opened the pouch and disappeared inside it. Of all the things that could have come out, the fox would never have dreamed that it would be a small fifty pence coin. There was nothing special about it, the pentagon shaped coin, but it was a mystery to Tails why Welshscot would have a coin that was worthless in Crisis and came from a country that the ginger haired man said he despised; for the coin was defiantly not legal tender.

What he did with the coin increased the bizarreness of the situation. He raised it to his lips and, with his upper and low right canines, grabbed one of the coin's edges with his teeth. He then lowered his hand and leaned backwards on his chair, the coin still poking out of his mouth, and began, with his teeth, to fiddle the coin up and down. Tails could only venture a guess to what this strange ritual's purpose was, but he managed to get a small flicker of emotion in the hybrid's eyes. It went as fast as it came, but the fox managed to get something that looked like deep concentration and blissful remembrance.

But then Welshscot returned to his first sitting position, the coin falling from his lips into his waiting hand. The coin still in hand, the medic then turned his eyes upon Tails and said, in a brisk tone, "Before you ask-no, I don't know if your dad is TD or not and I've already asked MK and Fina, and they've said no; but he does remind them of your dad. But I'm not here to talk about him so drop the subject."

Tails, who had been taken aback by the sudden answer to a question he had planned to beforehand, couldn't get a word in edgeways as Welshscot ploughed onwards. "Now," he began, in a voice that sounded slightly bored,"from what Tikal has told me, you're suffering from PTSD, aka post-traumatic stress disorder. Has anything accrued that might have caused this and if so what are the symptoms?"

Tails couldn't hold in his disbelief. "What kind of question is that! If Tikal told you that I had PTS...whatever, then surely she would have told you what caused it and the stuff that is effect by it! Is my face not enough, or do you want me to get it ripped off so you can get a hint of what the fucking problem is!"

"Doing that would kill you, something that would save everybody's time." Tails was speechless. But soon, that feeling was replaced by anger. He didn't know why Welshscot was being such an uncaring dick, but it was beginning to piss him off. He barely heard what the medic said next, which was, "But since MK would kill me if you went off killing yourself, I would much prefer if you told me what you think is the cause of your stress."

Grudgingly, Tails spent the next couple of minutes telling the ginger haired medic about the attack from MarDean (which the medic surely knew about already), how he had spent the time before being healed to full health and how he been overcome with panic when he tried to leave the garden centre. During this, the fox got more and more irate as Welshscot continued to show little to no interest in Tails' story.

After he had finished describing the moment Tikal injected him with a sedative, Welshscot then blatantly asked, "Let me guess, you then dreamed that MarDean was beating you up again?"

The fox nodded, his fingers now bawling into fists again as the resentment for the ginger continued to build. "It starts pitch black, but then the alley they attacked me in starts to materialize. Then MarDean and his friends appear, all armed with weapons. They start to approach and MarDean's voice just kept reverberating around my head." His anger at Welshscot faulted for a moment, as his fear crept back into its place. But that stopped when the ginger openly yawned, as if Tails' plight was not worth his attention. He then, with a fervent anger, finished his story; determined to make this man listen. "As I backed away, I noticed that there were weapons round my feet. I picked up one of them, a Colt Python, and tried to kill MarDean with it... ARE YOU ACTUALLY LISTENING TO ME!"

Tails, having just about enough of the medic's attitude, stood up; knocking the chair he was on to the floor. Even then, the medic didn't even seemed shock by this. On the contrary, he just flipped the coin in his hand and asked, lazily, "What did MarDean say to you, in the dream?"

Tails stamped his feet, his eyes now blazing with contempt and furry. He was sick of being treated like this, by people who ignore other people because they think there below them and just do whatever they want. Welshscot, it seemed, was just like any other ignorant man, just like MarDean. And despite all the angry that Tails was showing, the medic was still sitting there, flipping his stupid coin without even chancing a glance at Tails.

Without pausing to think, Tails snatched the coin out of the air. He curled his fingers around it, as if trying to crush it from existence, while yelling, "Are you gonna listen to me now, huh!"

Welshscot did not move. "Give that back."

Tails glared down at him; the coin still firmly in his grasp. "Are you going to listen to me?" he repeated, in an angrier tone than before.

"I said," muttered Welshscot, his body still motionless as before, "Give. That. Back." He whispered each word slowly, a firm coolness in each syllable. "Give me back my coin, or I will kill you."

The two tailed fox was filled with too much anger to hear the subtle spike of anger on the word kill; nor did he feel the flare of foreboding that was starting to fill the room. "And I said," He continued, "Are you going to listen to—"

It happened so fast that if Tails wasn't being dangled in the air, by the curtsey of a set of bandaged fingers, he would not have seen Welshscot's face; which, for the first time since he had looked upon a few weeks ago, was brimming with ripe emotion. It was hard to believe that this man, who had been so indifferent and bored, could produce such a venomous anger that was polluted with a mix of even darker emotions.

Tails' own anger was puny compared to Welshscot's. The medic, with fast reflexes, tore the fifty pence coin from Tails' grasp and dropped him back on the floor. Tails managed to keep his footing, even though he was stunted by the surge of anger and the feeling of fingers wrapping around his windpipe. Welshscot walked away, coin in hand and his face back to its usual blank state. He stopped behind the chair and began to speak again, in a tone that matched the one he used while demanding for his coin:

"Now, let me take a guess what the MarDean in your dream was saying. Something along the lines of being a freak or that you're worthless or weak?" Tails was still shaking from the sudden attack, but managed to nod all the same. "So does that mean I'm right in thinking that MarDean, during the original beating, said something about how mutants and the people who sympathise with them are worthless, that they don't deserve to live and that Eggman is going to create a world order where mutants don't exist?" Again, though not as shaky, Tails nodded. "And you believed that stupid bigot?"

Tails' old anger was back again, its main force being the indignation that comment had brought. "What the hell do you mean by that? Of course I don't believe it!"

"Then why are his words still plaguing you?" snapped Welshscot, his voice now heated but not on the same scale as before. "Because if there's one thing I know, it's not the fear of being attacked that's keeping you here, Tails, that's stopping you from going outside. It's not even the fear of MarDean; he's just the mask of the true problem." The medic turned his eyes to the coin, which was sitting in the palm of his bandaged hand, before continuing. "The truth is, Tails, is that you have no confidence in yourself and prefer to stick to things that are familiar."

Tails didn't know how to reply to this. A part of him was trying to work out what he meant but the other half was just plainly denying, disagreeing with every word that was coming from the ginger's mouth. But he kept silent so he could hear more of the base of Welshscot's claim.

"MarDean wasn't the first person to beat the crap out of you. Fiona and Scourge have given you the same kind of pain when Fiona left for the SS, and just a few weeks before when you were rescuing me and the other medics. You may have had a lot of grief and pain from these encounters, but you didn't start wetting your pants every time a bird flew out the window. What's different, then, why does a bigot's attack have a greater effect on you?"

"It's because, unlike the last two, MarDean managed to damage, not your face, but your dream and your belief; or, if I'm right, your vendetta. Either he managed to get in your head that mutants will never be equal, that our lives would always be like this, full of dark misery and despair; or he made you give up, that Eggman had won and that he'd never pay for what he did to mutants, to you and your parents."

The battle inside Tails did not disappear, only the opposing sides changed. What he said had struck a chord in the fox, a chord of truth that his fear was indeed of some kind of failure. But now the battle in was between the idea that he had given up his dream of equality, for every mutant who was suffering, or his lust for vengeance, to make Eggman pay for what he did to him and his family. But something seemed odd about what he said...

"How did you know that I dreamed of mutants being equal?"

"Isn't that what every Freedom Fighter dreams of?"

Tails slowly nodded. _Yes,_he thought, _Sally always used to say to me that 'One day, mutants won't have to hide anymore or have anything to fear. Mutants will be able to stand beside humans and Mobians, and together, we would all say 'screw you' to people like Eggman.'_

"It's why they exist," muttered Tails.

"And why people who gather behind the flag of the Suppression Squad are just cowards and losers," saidWelshscot. "They say that it's hopeless to fight the corrupt system and that the fate of mutants will depend on the survival of the fittest, only because they have given up in their hearts. They create the illusion that they are all powerful by lying to themselves about their own true feelings and bully anything in sight just to keep believing that they are better than everyone else, that they don't care that they are judged by what they are."

Tails looked up into Welshscot's eyes, which were unyielding in their guard of emotion, and muttered, firmly, "I'm not part of the SS."

"I didn't say that," replied Welshscot; his voice now starting to get some of its edge. "Unlike any of the bastards I've met from that punk squad, you are kind-hearted. Would anyone from the SS offer food and shelter to Caleb after they had knocked all of his money into the tar pits like you did? It may seem like the sensible thing to do, since you were the one who knocked the rings out of his hands, but most people would have just left Caleb on his own. And even then, most people would have ditched him after hearing his potty mouth for about two minutes."

Tails chuckled slightly, though inside he still didn't know where this was all leading to.

"Now, you said that the weapon you picked up in your dream was a colt python, right? Did you know that colt pythons share the same sized bullets and have almost the same gunshot sound, which varies slightly depending on the type of weapon, as the weapons Eggman's Egg Giants use?"

Tails shook his head. "No, I didn't. What has that got to...?"

Egg Giant...

A dawning look of comprehension fell upon Tails' scarred face.

"Exactly," stated the medic. "Even though I was getting my head smashed in around that time, I know that you were the one who stopped that Egg Giant during the graveyard assault. You, who usually stay on the side lines and supports the heroes who take the lead, managed to rise to the occasion and was successful to boot. What was the thing that drove you, that gave you courage to accomplish that feat? I think it was the sight of Eggman crossing the line, on you and every mutant alive and dead. But the main reason, the thing that Eggman did that angered you most of all, was he almost destroyed the only thing that helps you remember your parents; their grave stones."

"That is the turning point, that's when you started to raise your hatred for Eggman to new levels. That's why the weapon you chose in your dream was a Clot Python, a weapon that sounds like the weapon used by the thing you managed to destroy using your hatred of Eggman. That anger is why you want to compete in the races; an anger that you always had but never acted upon until now."

"But when you used your anger to destroy the Egg Giant, you channelled that in the form of your engineering skills, something that you are familiar with." Welshscot then pointed to the chair that Tails had chosen to sit on at the beginning of the session. "I'm surprised you didn't recognise that chair; it's from the Black Arms. You were drawn to it because it was familiar to you. When you were on the hospital bed, you kept asking for your Gear log because you wanted to resume the work you are familiar with. Why you feel comfortable around Wave, comfortable enough to dominate your mental block of going outside—"

"How did you know about that?" asked Tails, slightly defensively.

"Tails, do you really believe that Zackary would just let you wander around without keeping an eye on you, after everything that's happened?" said the medic,incredulously. "Since the moment Zackary came back from his date with Fina, he's had Shade keep an eye on you using her mutant power, Shadow eyes. As long as you keep near a shadow or kept yourself in a darkened room, Shade will always have an eye on you."

Tails suddenly became very weary of all the darkened shades and patches that littered around the small room. "I'm being spied on?" he cried, "I'm not a child; I can take care of my—"

"Oh, just stop spouting that crap!" snapped Welshscot who banged his left fist upon the chair he stood behind. "Zackary's only doing this because he cares about you. He feels likes he's failed you, the nephew he should have paid more attention to, and your parents, because they took him in when he had nowhere else to go. But unlike Sonic, he understands what your vengeance means to you; I also understand what vengeance means to you."

Tails, who had rekindled the same reckless anger as before, rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the psychiatrist whose job is to make me feel better, would say that, wouldn't he?"

Welshscot closed his eyes and began to chuckle, a chuckle that was as dark as night. "That just shows how little you know about me, Miles." He opened his eyes, which were now two shining beads of hatred that shone from a face of stone. "I know exactly what revenge means to a person, but unlike you, I'm not a pathetic shit."

"What did you call me!" growled the fox, who bared his fists and teeth.

"I called you a pathetic shit," stated Welshscot coolly. "The difference and similarity between you and me are what defers us. When I first started to wanted revenge, the first time I ever wanted such a thing in my life, I cut myself off from my friends and went underground;because I had the balls to go through with my path and felt that my friends would just get in my way. Luckily, TD managed to beat some sense into me. Because contrary to what people think, TD isn't a monster. He is vengeful but he still keeps what's truly important, his standards as a person and his friends. Even so, I still do my best to hide my emotions. CJ, who's like a sister to me, can't tell what I'm thinking anymore."

"You, on the other hand, are full of revenge but don't have the guts to go through with it. You stick to what you know, to what is familiar, and your anger for Eggman is trying to make you do something you aren't familiar with, to take the lead and kill Eggman on your own. The latter is strong, so strong that Caleb can only read that piece of emotion from you; he can't see that a part of you is struggling to keep things the norm, to stay familiar. So when MarDean beat you to a pulp, doubt started to grow between your anger and your usual nature. You lost faith in your ability to kill Eggman, thus causing you to start trying to push away people when they start to add to that doubt, like Sonic."

"That's why you can't leave this place, the place that's now familiar to you, that's why doubt is starting to cloud your want to keep things normal and for your need for vengeance; the doubt is shown in your dreams as the face of MarDean, your familiar tendency in the shape of your own body and your vengeance as the clock python. In short, you're just an F-rank pussy who can't decide what he wants."

Tails, as Welshscot's voice stopped ringing in his ears, felt stunned but not confused. In many ways, what the man had just said made sense. He did like to keep to things he knew, he felt nervous when taking the spotlight or doing something he didn't usually do; like when Blaze, Silver and Caleb all looked to him when they were searching for Sonic and the Medics and before he took part in the race he had gotten second place in. Also, it explained how he was comfortable around Wave, like Welshscot said. She was nothing like him, but since she was on the same wavelength when it came to Gears she became a friend faster than Sonic before they became as close as brothers.

Tails had to admit, he was useless at fighting. And now that he looked at his dream with more clarity, he realised that the pain he feared was not purely of death, but the fear of failure that was fuelled by the doubt MarDean has given him. But still...

"I'm not a pussy!"

It was Welshscot's turn to roll his eyes. "If you're not a pussy, then prove it."

Tails bit his lip. He knew what Welshscot meant by proving he wasn't a coward. For a moment, the old unease tried to desperately claw its way back. But Tails slammed the door in its face. He was not letting Welshscot win.

Without a word, both the fox and the hybrid walked from the small room and down the passages of the Nocturnes' base, their silence only broken when Welshscot airily sniffed:

"If you're planning on just focusing your journey to the Black Arms, you're just proving my point that you stick to what you're familiar with. Chances are you're still gonna be too scared to leave once your there."

Tails glared at the medic, while still keeping a steady rhythm of foot falls. "I wasn't planning on going to the Black Arms," he muttered.

"Then sticking your nose out is no great achievement, is it?"

Tails was about to snap back, but a sudden notion wafted into his mind, a notion that was calm and reason. The fox began to smile with a small sense of triumph. "Welshscot, you may be right about how I prefer sticking to stuff I know, but saying it rules me is complete bullshit."

"Is it now?"

"Yes," replied the fox; his voice starting to fill with smugness. "If that's true, then how did I become with friends Sonic, eh? Wouldn't I have been more comfortable being on my own, since I would be more familiar on my own?"

"I know for a fact that's not true. You were chummy with Sonic the moment you met; you were like 'magnets'."

Tails, while continuing to walk on automatic, was surprised by that statement. "How could you've know that?"

Welshscot shrugged. "My dad, Owen Scottmen, was the guy who cut your umbilical cord when you were born. He knew all the members of the Metalix guard and Sonic's uncle Chuck. He told me about the young, two-tailed fox off handily but I didn't give too much attention to it because I was studying for my final exams. The first time I saw you was five years ago at Antoine's and Bunnie's wedding."

"I don't remember you, you weren't invited."

"I was the priest who was handling the procession."

Off all the replies he was expecting, it was not that. "You're a priest!"

"Not my choice," grunted the medic. "Since... Marsali's disappearance, who was the original head of the Cult of Argus, her titles got passed onto me, and I use them to give mutant couples the right of marriage. It's mostly just a guy named Ratio Gaia, mostly known as Chip, who runs the little chapel, Diamond Dust."

Tails gave a small laugh, before muttering, "Never figured you as a voodooist."

"Don't assume unless you want a kick up the ass," replied the medic; who was more focused on his surroundings then Tails. He then changed the subject. "Anyway, you were saying something about my analysis being complete bullshit?"

"Okay, it's not complete bullshit," admitted the mechanic. "But it doesn't hold true for everything about me. I just got familiar with the Garden Centre."

"So," began the ginger, whose voice hinted a little relief for some reason. "You're saying that you can familiarise yourself to other things?"

"Yeah, like fighting for instance..."

"...And thus becoming stronger to accomplish your goal. But now, I ask you, what is your most important motive for your vengeance?"

Tails paused and thought deeply about his answer, while his body continued to carry him to his destination. Finally, the fox had his answer. "I want to kill Eggman because of what he did to me and all the other mutants. True, I feel like he's hurt me the most, but I want to stop him before he can hurt other just as badly as me!"

"And are you going to do it alone?"

"NO," he said fervently, his words brimming with certainty. "I can't just train aimlessly. I need help to become stronger!" He then remembered what Wave had told him. "So screw MarDean, that thumbless bastard, and screw Eggman and every single bigot who supports him! Mutants aren't grotesque, I am not stupid and I DON'T DESERVE TO DIE!"

"Good for you. Now stop shouting like some prized lunatic. People will start to stare."

It took a few moments for the fox to realise what the medic words meant. When the words sank in, Tails refocused his eyes to his surroundings and gasped. Having been lost in his verbal confrontation with the medic, his body had taken him past the main entrance of Nocturnes' base. He and Welshscot were now standing on grassy ground, which was slightly yellow due to the heat of summer, and to the left was a small lake that Tails had never seen before. A low mist clung to the surface of the water, but you could still see an old fashioned inn that was set on the far side of the lake.

Unease started to fill the fox. But it wasn't the same, suffocating feeling that had filled him when he thought of the outside or MarDean. In fact, Tails was starting to forget the nausea and panic that had dominated him for the past few days. The unease that he was feeling was more curious than just fear, a curiosity that he had felt long ago when he met Sonic for the first time.

He turned to Welshscot and—

"DAMN YOU!"

Tails nearly jumped out of his skin. A pink Mobian flamingo had leapt in front of him, angry tears streaming from her eyes. Whilst giving Tails a set of evils, the flamingo cried, "YOU HAD TO FALL FOR THE 'PRETENDING TO BE A DICK' ROUTINE! DON'T YOU REALISE THAT YOU HAVE JUST CONDEMNED SEVEN, CUTE FLOATY THINGS TO THE HANDS OF A MADMAN!"

She then burst into frantic tears, bawling her eyes out in front of two stunned individuals. Before Tails managed to rack up the courage to ask anything from the strange bird, two more strangers joined them. He vaguely recognised the tiger, who was named Kelp if he wasn't mistaken; he had seen him join the FF during Tails' last days at the Knotcorn before he left to live full time at the Black Arms. The other man was strange in more ways than one. Who would wear hooded winter clothes during a stifling hot summer? And the white ski mask he wore, which had only one eye hole which was in the shape of the Cult of Argus sun, just gave Tails the creeps.

Kelp walked over to the crying flamingo and gave her a small, awkward hug. "There, there, Lacy," comforted the tiger. "I'll make sure that psycho leaves Yacker alone." He then shot an angry glare at the hooded man,who shrugged it off like nothing.

Welshscot, who was just as confused at Tails, turned to the ski masked man and asked; "Mind filling me in, Hjalmar?"

The man, 'Hjalmar', was quick with his reply and delivered it bluntly. "Kelp and Lacy didn't believe me when I said that you'd be able to get Tails out and about after one session. So I made a bet: if you managed to get Tails out of the garden centre by today I would be allowed to dissect seven of the wisps we rescued from the Iron Domain raid. If you couldn't do it, I had to show them my face."

Tails had enough; he needed to put his foot down. Waving to get everyone's attention, he asked, impatiently, "Excuse me, can someone please explain to me where I am, who are you people and what do you mean by dissecting Wisps?"

Welshscot quickly rose to the fox's aid. Clearing his throat, the medic began to list the answers: "You're in the grounds of Misty Lake. That inn over there," he pointed towards the other side of the lake, "is the home of the owner of these grounds, which span to the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre and the Crystal Caves. Her name is Merlina and the inn she runs is called the Camelot Inn."

"Now, the flamingo's name is Lacy, she's a new member of the Freedom Fighter." Lacy nodded her eyes still red and puffy from all of her crying. "The tiger's name is Kelp; also a Freedom Fighter. And this man here is my best friend, Hjalmar Tid."

"Hei," greeted Hjalmar, who inclined his head to the fox. "Before you ask, I am Norwegian not Russian, I am a Forensic scientist and I am a full member of the Freedom Fighter since three years ago." He then gestured to the flamingo. "The reason why she's crying is because she can't understand why I test my lobotomy skills on animals."

Lacy shook her fists at Hjalmar, yelling, "WISPS ARE CUTE, WHY DO YOU WANT TO KILL THEM!"

"And they're an endangered species," added Kelp.

Despite the fact he was wearing a mask, anyone could clearly see the sadistic smirk that was curling around his lips. "All the more reason to examine them now, before people crush them into HGO dust." It was safe to say that Tails was slowly backing away from Hjalmar.

Welshscot, who didn't seemed at all phased by the Norwegian's habit, just changed the topic like nothing weird had just happened. "So, I take it you completed the errand I asked of you?"

"Yep," replied Hjalmar. "They said you'd have to wait a day or two, but it will be ready for collection at the inn."

In another situation, Tails might have wanted to inquire into this affair. But Hjalmar was making him feel uneasy. The man had failed to specify what he meant by animal; being it just animals or Mobians. Welshscot saw Tails's discomfort out of the corner of his eye. The medic turned to Lacy, who was wiping the tears from her eyes, and asked, "Hey, do you mind taking Tails home? I don't want Hjalmar giving him another breakdown."

The flamingo nodded, and after giving Hjalmar another hateful glare, beckoned Tails to follow her. But before he did anything else, Tails turned to Welshscot and asked, quietly, "Thank you, Welshscot."

It was very faint, but Tails managed to see a smile upon the face of stone. "Don't mention it," he shrugged. "It's my job to help people. It's the only thing I'm good for..." He trailed off, his eyes drifting down to the coin that was still in his bandaged hand. He then looked back at Tails and started talking in his blank tone again. "If you start having more problems, come to me immediately. And could you give this..." He pulled out a small note and placed it in Tails's hands. "...To Prentis when you next see him. It's the address of where I'll be tomorrow morning and I would like to go there so we can begin his training."

Tails nodded, pocketed the note in his jeans and began to follow the flamingo. As they both headed away from the mist covered lake, towards the looming structure of the garden centre, Tails heard Kelp's raised voice on the wind. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT ME TO KILL THEM!"

"It would make the examination more interesting," replied Hjalmar in a cool yet sadistic tone. "It would be a challenge for me if I had to work out how the wisps were killed."

"YOU'RE INSANE!"

"No, I'm inquisitive."

Thankfully, Tails and Lacy were soon out of ear shot of Hjalmar, who Tails secretly hoped never to meet him again. There may be more to the masked man than meets the eye, but the fox's mind was still swimming with the mystery of Welshscot. Who did he want to kill? Why does he hide his emotions and why he acted so violently when Tails took his fifty pence coin from the medic? But despite how early it was in the day, the fox's brain felt sleepy and his stomach was growling for Amy's cooking. He just wanted to eat, find out what he had missed while he was staying at the garden centre and sleep.

Lacy, who was still grumbling about Hjalmar, marched up to a tree and rose up a hand to Tails, telling him to stand back. She then balled her fingers and punched the solid bark. The moment her fist made contact, the air around the bark began to ripple. Just to add to the over flowing list of information of strangers, Tails' eyes widened when a small, square shape started to form into the bark. Inside the square, the fox could clearly see a picture of the Black Arms' kitchen; just as he remembered it.

He could even see Amy at the oven, putting in one of her pies for baking. After she had closed the oven's door, she stood up and turned in Tails' direction- and gasped! "Tails! What the-how are you-who the..."

Lacy didn't even miss a beat as she began to recite a rehearsed explanation. "I have the mutant ability to break the fourth dimension. I can punch holes in reality which can be used as portals to other places in the world. Yes, this includes punching through time. No, I can't time travel because the reality holes I make in different time lines are too small to pass through. I can see into the past because the holes are the size of key holes, but I can't make a dent in future timelines. I mainly use it for fast travel."

She then grabbed Tails by the shoulder and pushed him through the hole. As his feet transferred from earthy ground to wooden floor boards, the fox also noticed the change of temperature, and most importantly, the feeling of...'familiarity'. There was no denying what Welshscot had said, even though it wasn't accurate for everything about Tails, that the fox clung to what he knew; and he knew that this place was home.

He stumbled slightly as he landed on the floor of the Black Arms, but he didn't fall flat on his face. That was good, since he then got overrun by familiar faces; namely Amy and Cream. He didn't know what Cream was saying, as she hugged him and babbled into his ears about something or other, and Amy words were just falling on deaf ears. He managed to shake them off, just in time to hear Lacy say, "Hey, Sally and the other lieutenants want to see you but they can't leave the Knotcorn due to the damn heat from the raid. They're asking if you can visit when you're able, and bring Sonic with you. Sally wants to murder him." And with that, the flamingo's hole in reality closed, leaving the wall it had opened in like it had before.

Tails sighed as he made his way to the sofa. If there was one thing he needed, it was peace and quiet so he could mull over the events of the day. It took him a long time to rest, since Cream kept on pestering him, and it took even longer for him to wake up, since his dream had been the most enjoyable one in days. And before he began to cast his mind to matters of important or trial natures, Tails couldn't help but ask if Amy had noticed that one of the dining room chairs was missing.

Back with Lacy, she looked up at the sky and thought: _Hopefully, WelshScot and Domi will get back into the game. I really want to find out what I did during the Iron Domain assault..._ And with that, she gave the sky an impish smile and winked.

_Sometimes you gotta fall before you fly,  
>And sometimes to really live, you've gotta try.<br>We can change it all together, in the end you're gonna find,  
>That what we felt in our hearts was real the whole time.<em>

_When you open up your eyes, I hope that you find,  
>Who you are, who you are.<em>

_Who are you now?  
>Who are you now?<em>

_Who are you now?  
>Did you say what you want?<br>Don't go back to the start.  
>I'm asking; who are you now?<br>Did they break you apart?  
>Won't you fight back for what you want?<em>

_Sometimes you gotta fall before you fly.  
>Sometimes you gotta fall before you fly.<br>We're gonna work it out._

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>It would be awesome if you looked up this song; it's so completely perfect for this chapter. _Who are you now? _by Sleeping With Sirens. And _yay_ for breaking the fourth wall! REVIEW!~


	33. I Can Save You

**domi|note: **Sorta double post. Oh yeah, and I forgot the say, there's a new picture on my DA of Caleb's family from four years ago. Go have a look if you're curious.

Thanks **HalfWright**, **insidious fanboy**, **LordCooler**, **Metalshadow1909**,** Yuke Navy Pilot** and **Exploder** for reviewing the last chapter and to the awesome **Pixelated Firefly **for beta-ing once again. You're doing a splendid job so far, Darling.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. ~Mark Twain<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Three  
>.<em>  
>"I saw you move from across the room, I knew who you were. You act like you are afraid of who you are, I'm afraid for you. Try, trust and believe in me. I can show you that there's so much more. There's still hope for you. Let me show you I can save you."<br>…_  
>Black Cat <em>by Mayday Parade

* * *

><p>After the initial 'Welcome Back' ceremony that Amy had cooked up, and handing the note to Caleb before he completely forgot about it, Tails wanted to return to work and finish up the Gear commissions that he had missed. He knew that Welshscot had told him <em>not<em>to immediately settle into a familiar routine, but this was his _job. _Unfortunately, his friends seemed adamant on not letting him get down to the garage, so now he was stuck on the lounge, asking what everyone had been up to now that he was gone. They said that they hadn't been up to much, but it's not like Tails was going to believe them; Silver and Blaze weren't talking, plus she'd found new accommodations across the street, Marine wouldn't leave Caleb alone (who seemed to have recovered from his coffee deprived frenzy) and apparently she'd gotten a new job as well, Knuckles and Shadow were being more emo, but he already knew that Knuckles was in a kind of state due to something in The Black Market, Amy was PMSing more than usual, Sonic and Tails still hadn't made up and The Babylon Rogues were whispering among each other secretively.

Tails felt like a stranger in his own home;everyone was keeping secrets and not telling him anything, plus his relationship with Sonic was starting to take a toll of everybody, considering that Sonic was like, the epitome of happiness around this place.

Shadow and Knuckles excused themselves and Marine and Blaze went across the street to their own apartment, leaving the rest of them watching some cheesy movie they didn't care about. The Babylon Rogues were the first ones to fall asleep, Amy, Sonic and Silver next. Caleb fell asleep right before Tails did, leaving the yellow kit with the obligation to turn the television off.

As he settled into the bean bag, an ominous feeling clenched at his heart and made falling asleep just that little bit harder.

_Close up Camera One,  
>The hero sings in this scene.<br>The boy that gets the girl gets to go home, where they get married.  
>But stop the tape,<br>The sunset still looks fake to me.  
>The hero looks like he can't breathe,<br>The damsel just left everything._

_You're like a black cat with a black back pack full of fireworks,  
>And you're gonna burn the city down right now.<br>Whoa, whoa._

_You're like a black cat with a black back pack full of fireworks,  
>And you're gonna burn the city down right now.<br>Whoa, whoa._

_Oh, close up Camera Two,  
>`Cause the hero dies in this scene.<br>Your inspiration is the loss of absolutely everything.  
>And flashback on the girl,<br>As we montage every memory.  
>And we bleed out in the bathroom sink,<br>And we fade out as the soundtrack sings…_

When he woke up the next morning, the first sound that he heard was giggling. So he bolted up and made sure his friends had not made a mess of him. He was clean, but when he looked over to The Babylon Rogues, he found that the unfortunate sleeping birds had been glued together through their clothes. Amy, Silver and Sonic were each holding a tube of super-glue. Caleb was awake and standing next to Silver, Knuckles and Shadow as they continued their work, watching how it progressed.

"So why do you guys do this?" Caleb asked, even though he already knew the answer. Tails blanched… he couldn't have caught on, could he? Unfortunately, Silver was speaking before Tails could stop him. Silver, Amy and Sonic had _not_ been clued into the fact that Caleb was part of the Aloe Heist.

"It's kind of like… an initiation right we do. If we like someone enough, then we prank them when they fall asleep on the couch," Silver said, unaware of the fact that Caleb flinched when he heard that. "The Babylon Rogues have been accepted in because they found the miracle drink that got Tails better."

Caleb released a long sigh before smiling, "That's cute."

_Oh no, although he'd never admit it, Caleb's hurt because we won't accept him as well…_ Tails thought, knitting his eyebrows together. He glanced towards Knuckles and Shadow, wondering if they'd had something to do with the fact that Caleb had been left out.

"What?" Silver laughed, "Because we're not doing it to you? You're not missing out on much."

_Acceptance. Loyalty. Friendship._

"Don't worry," Caleb's tone was distant, somewhat condescending and _cold_ as he brushed past Tails and started heading downstairs, "I'm no stranger to rejection."

He heard the empath scoff as he opened the doors with a little more force than was necessary, his right hand shaking with the effort. Tails noticed that he was wearing a glove to cover up the bandages from his wound, heart clenching again as he watched the brown fox's retreating form.

_How can someone so emotionally unstable survive like he does?_ Even if, coming from him, it sounded a little hypocritical; his mental trauma didn't involve the emotions of other people.

But despite what his heart told him, his mind was whispering in the back of his head that Caleb _didn't_ deal with this oppressive power properly. That his powers were destructive, and what remained behind the conflicted blue eyes of the empath could have been a string of broken hearts and dead bodies.

Tails shuddered and pushed it into the back of his head, but the thoughts only faded. They never disappeared.

* * *

><p><em>You Kill Me (In A Good Way) <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>"This is odd," Tails looked at his Gear log the next day, after getting away from Shadow and Rouge's fighting upstairs, finding that all the gears he was meant to be fixing were already fixed and shipped to the owners. The Black Arms had already received five 'Thank you' e-mails and even Shadow's commissions had been completed. The jobs that he had in the Gear log had been crossed out and accomplished by someone with neat, cursive writing written in playful purple gel pen.<p>

The only person with more skill with a Gear than him was…

"Wave?" he asked, bringing his Gear log over to the swallow who was still working on her own gear, maybe repairing it from the heist. "Did you finish my commissions for me?"

The violet avian didn't look up as she continued working on her gear, "Don't thank me. I collected twenty-five percent of your profits."

In truth, the vulpine had been very thankful and he _was_ about to thank her, but simply narrowed his eyes and scoffed, "Whatever..."

He ignored her smirk as she walked away, more intent on another task than trying to verbally spar with the fellow mechanic. He needed to get in contact with Heartnet, who had been avoiding everyone as of late, except maybe Marine and Blaze, who said they'd spotted him at Cesario's place a lot. Tails supposed he was still a little emotionally damaged from the indirect rejection before, so it was a surprise to see him arrive around midday.

"Hi, Prower. Something you need?"

"Yeah…" he scratched the back of his head nervously, "I was kinda… wondering if you'd… maybe…"

Caleb looked at him, seemingly confused. In the back of him mind, Tails wondered about how Caleb and Welshscot could ever get along. Caleb was _so_ expressive. He said the first thing that came to his head. He smiled. He laughed. He snarled. He cried. And looking at the medic was like staring at a blank wall. You'd be lucky to get _one_ glimpse of emotion from the psychiatrist.

"What?"

"What the _fuck_ did Welsh do to you? Your emotional psyche is all muddled up, and there's a whole ugly mix of green, blue and orange. That something like a mix between apprehension, sadness and contentment, which is _fucked up_ by the way. They're not even moving in harmony either, they're clashing constantly."

"What the heck are you talking about?"

Caleb still looked as if he was seeing through Tails instead of looking _at_ him, "I see someone's emotions in the form of colour sometimes. But it's only when they… remember how I said you _radiate_ your emotions?"

Stupid concept. "Yeah. I still don't get it though."

"Um… lemme explain it like this. Music right? Pretend your emotions are music, and there's a wall between me and you. For normal people. I can hear music coming through the walls. For people like Shadow, who hide their emotions all the time, I have to punch a hole in the wall to see the emotions. For people like you, who 'radiate', the emotion is already blasting through the wall so clearly I don't even need to be _near _it... Only when they're doing that- Oh, and now you're pissed."

"Am I?" he growled.

"Your aura's getting redder and redder. So you're either really horny or really angry, but yours is a mix between scarlet and Tuscan red, dimming down the shades with black which means contempt, which is a combination of disgust and anger, meaning that you won't be jumping the nearest girl you see any time soon... y'know, even if I know there's only _one_ girl you have your eyes on anyway. There are some colours that like to mindfuck other empaths because they have double meanings. Some of them can't see colour at all, and I might only be able to see them because of my other talent."

Tails didn't get half of Caleb's slightly sleepy mumblings, but he was sure it was a mix of his regular word vomit and something that was actually interesting in a different state of mind.

"Another?"

"I'm a superchromat. It's a kind of secondary power I got from my mother. It's kind of insulting really, considering the fact that empathy is already a pretty feminine power, cross that with this one and I should be in possession of some kind of vaginal orifice. It allows me to distinguish and identify all shades of colours. It sucks though really, it's like living life with your screen on full saturation."

"Solaris, if only your powers helped you in combat."

"Tails, I'm tired, can we hurry this up?" he asked, a little annoyed, eyes drooping as he tried to rub away the tiredness.

"What? You're the one that lengthened this conversation."

"Details. Details. What'cha want, Kid?"

"I saw you fighting at The Violet Manor, I was wondering if you could teach me how to."

The older fox blinked at him warily before rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes again as if he didn't understand what was happening. Tails was about to ask the question again when Caleb shook his head warily, "I'm sorry, I just don't have the time. I've got three jobs and an apprenticeship to worry about."

"Oh, alright…" Tails said dejectedly, making Caleb sigh. "How was your lesson with WelshScot by the way?"

"_Exhausting. _I_ think_ he's in a mood... but I can't tell, you know? I'm trying to get him to see one of my friends, because she's having some problems in the head as well... Um, it's probably not going to work out, given her personality and... violence issues. But listen, I do know someone that can help you, trained in the GUN combat arts, just like me," he explained, "for bonus points, you even know him."

"You were trained by GUN?" the little fox asked, astonished.

"Don't spread it 'round or I'll be in deep shit."

They both made their way onto the second level of The Black Arms and Caleb pointed his injured hand in Shadow's direction.

"How do you know Shadow was a GUN agent?"

He laughed, "I actually met him briefly when I was twelve, for like, ten minutes before he was sent to Soleanna. He didn't leave much of an impression on me though, so I forgot who he was. I didn't remember who he was until I met up with Rouge again. Is it a little weird that he doesn't look _any _older?" He paused a second before murmuring, "There was a rumour going around when I was a cadet, it was that Shadow was trained by former Commander Nathaniel Truscott himself."

"Whoa! The GUN military leader that died five years ago?" Tails asked.

An unknown emotion flashed through the fox's eyes before he nodded and made a gesture to 'shush'. Tails' eyes widened, suddenly becoming hesitant and shy, more-so than he was when he had asked the brown fox next to him, but Caleb seemed undeterred by the entire situation, "Rouge?" The black hedgehog and the white bat stopped their 'civil' conversation to address the two. The empath jerked a hand in Tails' direction and said, "Do you remember that favour you owe me?"

The bat's turquoise eyes softened and she nudged Shadow in the ribs, receiving a chilling glare in response before he nodded towards Heartnet. Tails bit his lip. It wasn't that he disliked Shadow; he considered the hedgehog to be one of his best friends, even if the hedgehog didn't reciprocate these feelings. It was just that, he had seen Shadow fight, and he would be lying if he said the dark hedgehog's combat didn't scare the living daylights out of him.

The brown fox nudged Tails forward gently before making his way over to Rouge. Tails cleared his throat, finding that his voice still cracked under the pressure he suddenly felt. He should have been used to it, the red-streaked hedgehog was intimidating by nature, "Shadow, could you teach me how to fight?"

The red-streaked hedgehog looked at him with softened eyes before he sighed, "Wouldn't it be a better idea to ask Sonic to teach you fisticuffs?"

Caleb and Rouge snorted in tandem and Shadow shot them each menacing glares for picking on his vocabulary before looking down on the yellow fox once more. Tails rubbed at his neck nervously before saying, "But I'm not talking to Sonic right now…" He saw Shadow purse his lips and quickly fixed his mistake, "I mean; Sonic doesn't want anything to do with me if the fights I am involved in have anything to do with The Grand Prix. Do you understand, Shadow?"

"Not as well as I thought I did. I'll teach you, Tails, but only if you make amends with Sonic."

Tails was about to protest, but bit his tongue, realising that the request was not all that unreasonable and was- in fact- a rather compassionate request on Shadow's part. He noticed Caleb stiffen in the corner, but dismissed it as nervousness, "Okay. I'll try."

"My training programme will be rigorous, considering the fact that we need you up to decent standards by the next race. We have eight days to improve your self-defense. I expect nothing but absolute obedience," Shadow said, sounded like the stereotypical army general already."Is that clear?"

Tails knitted his eyebrows, feeling a little bit of regret for his decision already. Normally the hedgehog was pretty mellow… well… maybe mellow wasn't the proper word. Uncaring. Yes, that was it. He was starting to scare him.

_Being scared of Shadow is better than being afraid of MarDean… of failure, any day, _he thought.

"Is that clear?" Shadow repeated, firmer this time.

"He kind of reminds me of Commander Brass," Caleb whispered to Rouge, receiving a giggle as she slung her arm around his shoulders.

Tails thought before he straightened his posture and said, "Yes, Shadow."

"Okay. We can start as soon as business hours are over." Geez, right after work? "One frightful aspect of your self-defense is the inability to run away when your enemies overwhelm you. Sonic and I aren't efficient teachers for that particular subject because we rely on speed to reach our own altitudes. I'd suggest investing in the help of Silver, Heartnet or The Babylon Rogues. I think Silver would be a better choice because Heartnet would only be able to teach you while he's working, and the avians have an erratic schedule. Now… you might want to get started on the washing machine. I'd fix it, but Amy's load is in there."

"What?" Rouge laughed, "Shadow the Hedgehog? Afraid to touch a woman's underwear?"

Shadow's eyes narrowed at her, his lips curling up in a smirk, "I have a reluctance to touch women's underwear if there is no woman attached to them."

_Shadow, you lewd beast, _Tails sighed.

Rouge coughed over her next statement, in a pathetic attempt to cover it up; "Whore floor." Caleb laughed before heading upstairs. Shadow sent the both of them glares.

"Remember the terms of our agreement, Prower." Shadow said, disappearing into the garage after witnessing Tails' reluctant nod.

He turned to Rouge and Caleb, who were discussing something quietly. After a few more moments, Caleb's face broke into a huge grin, and Rouge reluctantly handed over five golden rings. It looked like she'd lost a bet, "None of you would know where Sonic is, would you?"

* * *

><p><em>Count On Me <em>by Bruno Mars

* * *

><p>The foundation of The Black Arms building was their first floor; their garage. The second floor consisted of the continuation of what was once a skyscraper that had been knocked down in The Massacre, the remaining room space atop the first floor had been created into a small rooftop garden, a small launch station that doubled up as a basketball court, the skylights, a makeshift Jungle gym, and a half pipe. The entire roof, except for a section of the half pipe and some of the launch padbasketball court, was surrounded by rusting metal fence as some pathetic attempt to make the place mildly safe.

Sonic was sitting on the half pipe with a broken blue Gear in his hands, swinging up one of his legs so that the heel of his sneaker hit the curved surface of the half pipe. If he heard Tails' soft footfalls he did not acknowledge the fox as he got onto the opposite end of the wooden structure, crossing his arms on his knees as he waited for Sonic to say something, because he'd caught that brief flicker of emerald eyes as he'd situated himself down.

"You could have been up here faster than that if you could fly."

"I know."

There was seven tense minutes between them. The only sound the wind as it danced between Sonic's quills and blew about Tails' fringe and the fur at his nape.

"I'm sorry."

The statement was abrupt. It was simple, and spoken with a tone that sounded like it was going to crack any second now. Sonic's eyes hung his head in his hands, elbows placed precariously on his knees while Tails eyes widened.

The fox repeated himself, "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" Sonic asked, his tone indistinguishable, "Are you really?"

"Well…" Tails paused a second to gather his thoughts, he knew this was going to be difficult. His nervousness was apparent in his soft-spoken voice, shy eyes and constantly wringing hands, "For the yelling, and the bad things I said about you, and the swearing."

"Does that mean you-?" Sonic asked, but Tails interrupted him with a shake of his head.

"No. Not sorry for that. I'm not quitting Sonic, and you can't make me."

There was silence, and then Sonic looks up, and Tails can see something that looks like understanding in his eyes, "I know I can't… But can you seriously blame a brother for trying?"

There was another pregnant pause, and Tails realises the awkward pauses were something he never wanted to experience with someone as close as Sonic. It pained him, "No… I guess I can't."

Another long moment.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Sonic asks.

"Are you going to forgive me? Because if you aren't I can just leave now," Tails said. The statement was composed of words designed to hurt, but his tone held no malice, no hurt. He was stating facts, just as a scientist should, with cold and unfeeling emotion.

But Tails is nothing like that. He felt more than he should, and apparently he 'radiated' his feelings so they become obvious to other people. He didn't want people seeing this thing within him, this vulnerability, this _weakness_. He needed to prove to his friends, or more importantly, himself, that he wasn't this weak, that he wasn't helpless and defenceless against the big, bad monsters that plagued their home.

So even if he didn't let it on, the flinch in Sonic's form frightened him, hurt him in a way he knows it shouldn't have.

"Yeah, I do." He shifted and raised his head, heart feeling lighter than it had in weeks. Sonic's eyes are cautious as his hand cradles his head; he's still got both of his elbows resting on his knees. His posture says he's curious, his eyes say there's still something he's not telling Tails, "But I need to know something; are you just asking to make amends because Shadow said you have to, or because you _want_ to?"

Tails' eyebrows knitted in annoyance, "Contrary to recent events Sonic, I'm not as stubborn as everyone thinks I am. Of course I want to."

Sonic chortled a little bit, and hearing that made the fourteen-year-old's expression soften, "Yes you are. Most of it depends on the situation though. I've known this technique since you were four Tails; it's very manipulative."

"What?" he asks in confusion.

"You're cute and submissive, and everyone knows you're lenient, so you allow yourself to be used as a walking doormat so that when the time comes to ask something so bloody huge of us, we can't refuse, because we owe you so much already," Sonic explained, and there was amusement in his tone.

"I don't…" _I don't think about it like that, _Tails thought dejectedly.

"You do," Sonic smiled, "and might I say that it's _very _effective. You've been doing it since you were a kid Tails. When I was taking care of us, you'd never ask for _anything_. But when the time came that you wanted something, it would be _huge_ and really hard to attain, like… like a Chaos Emerald, or the thousands of mechanical doo-hickeys that were strictly Black Market and _really _expensive… or your first Extreme Gear."

Tails mulled this information over and then looked up, "What of it? What does any of that matter?"

Sonic slipped down the half pipe and stood before Tails in the middle of the semi-circle so that he had to look up to address the fox's face, "You've never asked to bargain for your freedom before. I realise it's something I shouldn't- no- I _can't_ restrict you from. I can't believe I hadn't realised it before, but it goes against _everything_ I am. So… I'm sorry too, Bro."

"Okay…" Tails slid down to meet Sonic halfway, looking up at his older brother.

"Just _please _Tails, don't let this competition change you. I just- I've seen events like this Grand Prix turn people into shadows of who they are. I don't want that to happen to you."

Tails smiled, a big, happy one this time, "I promise."

* * *

><p><em>Do It Now, Remember It Later <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>He had to admit that he was a little surprised when Sonic reached down and hugged him, more for the hedgehog's assurance then his own. Tails patted him on the back comfortingly, minding Sonic's sharp quills, crying out when Sonic's embrace became a forceful headlock, "Sucker!"<p>

Despite himself, he started laughing as he pried himself from Sonic's superior grip, "Quit it!" When Sonic finally let go, Tails had started on his way inside when he asked, "Hey, what made you change your mind?"

"Hey! You know that stray you found,Heartnet? Yeah!" Sonic said enthusiastically, and with a touch of sarcasm, "I decided I don't like him!"

Tails laughed, "Yes. He does seem to have that effect on people…" He was about to defend the fox, when the memory of him watching Caleb speak to Sonia's painting flashed through his head, "Hey, Sonic… have you ever _met_ Caleb before?"

The hedgehog shook his head, "First time I met 'im was when you dragged him into The Arms."

"Alright, but do you know if Heartnet knew _Sonia_ in any way?" Tails regretted asking the question as soon as it had left his lips. He knew he should have eased into it, but now Sonic's eyes were alight with curiosity and thinly veiled suspicion.

"What?"

He knew that keeping secrets from Sonic at this point would prove the worry the hedgehog, and make him distrust Tails, especially after that argument they had just recovered from, so he decided to tell him everything, "Well, while I was in Mystic Ruins, before I left I saw Caleb staring at the portrait of her, and _speaking _to it, staring at it with such an _intense_ emotion."

"Did he say anything?"

"Before he realised I was watching him, he said 'I miss you'," he explained.

Sonic's eyes were unreadable as he thought about this, and then he turned to the entrance of the building and said, "Is he inside? I should have a word with him."

"Not now," Tails protested, "he's sleeping."

Sonic's eyes narrowed into jade slits, "It's four in the afternoon. Heartnet is _always_ sleeping. When he isn't working or eating, he's sleeping. Isn't that a little suspicious? Does he have no social life?"

The yellow fox bit his lip, "Sonic, it isn't any of our business. Besides, I doubt he'd want to tell us anything about his private life when we rejected him so abruptly yesterday."

"What do you mean?"

"You know? Leaving him out of the couch-prank tradition."

"But that was because The Babylon Rogues got the aloe to make you better; it's saying that all over the news."

"What the news isn't saying is that Caleb _orchestrated_ the entire thing. It was his idea, he gathered the Intel, and he was there, with the Rogues, to execute the entire mission. Have you seen the wound on his hand? He got that during the heist."

"He… he left _blood_ on the scene?" Sonic asked his eyes going wide as he looked back to The Black Arms.

_Shit. Did Sonic see the news report?_

"You-you mean there could be a fucking _murderer_ in our home right now?"

_Yep._

Tails instincts proved a valuable asset as he reached forward and snatched Sonic's arm before the speedster could run away, "Tails! Not only does that weirdo have a weird affixation with Sonia, but he _could_ be a potential murderer/rapist under an alias and you're_defending _him?"

"Sonic! You can't prove that!"

"And _you_ can't prove him innocent! Tails!" Sonic growled, but Tails persisted, "Your freedom, sure, but I can't let you endanger everyone _else_ like this!"

"Winchester is thirty-two!"

"Cosmetic surgery! You can't believe everything that you see on the internet! He's only been on the scene since The Massacre, and Heartnet could pass for twenty or something."

"Sonic!" Tails snarled knowing Sonic was lying, he looked older than his age, but he definitely didn't look twenty. This time, Sonic turned around to regard his friend, "You're doing it again! You're not listening to me."

The blue hedgehog cast a weary glance towards Tails, and then sighed and turned around, "Go on."

"Heartnet hasn't done anything but _help_ me since he came here. I mean, I know he's annoying, but he hasn't done anything to intentionally hurt any of us... except Silver, maybe."

"Yeah, and does he have any reason to? I mean, he's weird."

Tails rolled his eyes, "He stole billions of rings worth of aloe for me, and for what? Nothing, gratitude maybe, but he was still just trying to pay me back for my generosity, and what is he rewarded with? A _house_ of suspicion and hatred. No one's even _proven_ that it's his blood. What if Claudel Winchester really _was_ at The Aloe Heist? Besides, if it was Caleb's blood than it would have shown up in the Solean databases. I guess they didn't find his DNA."

Sonic growled at him, and looked back inside, "Fine Tails, I'll let it slide for now. But I'm keeping an eye on him, and once he's awake, I'm going to ask him about the painting."

Tails sighed, "Thanks, Sonic."

The blue speedster nodded and changed the subject, trying to lift the mood, "So, can I change your mind about becoming your self-defense teacher?"

Tails shook his head, "I'm sorry Sonic, but you'd just go easy on me."

"The rate you're going at, you'll be strong enough to beat me in no time."

* * *

><p><em>Whataya Want From Me <em>by Adam Lamber feat. P!nk

* * *

><p>"Follow me."<p>

The statement was so abrupt and quick that Tails couldn't process it fast enough to avoid the blow. The impact was as if a cannon full of bricks had been aimed at his shoulder, it sent a seismic wave through his bone, instantly throwing him to the ground. He felt almost sure that something was broken, but when he got up he found that he was fine, save for the dull thrum of pain through his tender skin. He'd felt like the blows would have ripped apart his skin by now, but Shadow was precise and accurate, making sure he felt the pain, but wouldn't suffer any serious damage.

It irritated him… how Shadow was _still_ holding back, just because he _had_ to.

"Get up. Try again."

Shadow's commands never exceeded six words. That's how the instructions were as far as he was concerned, if they were the length of a complete sentence then Tails didn't notice, because he was either trying to defend himself, or nurse a new blow. Shadow believed in the way the body memorised movements; reaction time, power application, sixth sense… Generally relying on instincts more that brain capacity. That wasn't to say that Shadow was stupid. Tails was just sour because he liked to rely on strategy and smarts more than brute strength, and Shadow just happened to have both. Being in GUN had probably sharpened his strategizing methods as well as his means of improvisation and combat abilities.

Tails relied on technology. Machines had always made sense to him, even if he wasn't sure _why_ they spoke to him with such clarity. So he was left bare on the rooftop of The Black Arms as he was subjected to Shadow's relentless torture (read: training.)

"Push forward, Tails."

"I'm trying," he growled, trying to heave himself up on shaking arms.

"Try harder."

As soon as Tails was on his feet, Shadow appeared before him in the blink of an eye and knocked the wind out of him with a foot laden with cement instead of the canvas sneakers Shadow was really wearing. Tails choked on air, tumbling to the ground and crying out in surprise while Shadow decided to continue the rest of his lesson.

"The enemy will not hesitate to hurt you. To push you to breaking point. There is no 'Time out' for your adversary. Already you're dead. Your legs have been crushed. Your arms, dislocated. Your head, shot through repeatedly. Your tails, twisted and broken. Your spine, dislodged."

"I get the point!"

"Your face… _scarred._" Shadow trailed off, knowing the comment hit home.

Tails steeled himself and forced his limbs to obey his commands, dropping into a defensive stance once again. Shadow smiled. It was a low blow, but rage fuelled attacks better than sloth.

"Yes, even if you're on the ground, prioritise defence unless you _know_ you can land a hit. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Get up and try again."

It irritated Tails because they'd been practicing like this for three hours and he felt like he hadn't improved _at all. _They were sparring on the rooftop, and he was starting to feel cold, hungry and annoyed. Not to mention the fact that he was in pain, _all the time._Shadow caught him at his weakest points, breaking his defense as easily as if it was made of paper mache. He was still careful though, and Tails felt as much pain as Shadow wanted him to… which was normally a whole damn lot.

"Aim for my weak spots."

"_What_ weak spots?" he cried, trying to duck another attack, getting hit in the ribs instead.

"The solar plexus, the gut, the genitals, the head, the tail, the back of the knees, wrists, joints, etcetera. You're smarter than this."

"But I'm not quicker."

Shadow dropped out of battle stance, allowing Tails to rest on the floor, "Your reaction time with increase when your muscles learn to memorise the movements and adapt to the pain so you can endure more. Being a fox has already given you a greater advantage; better sight, smell, hearing. Plus your body is designed for speed. Your skills in combat just haven't been honed yet. Unless it's a restricted match, take every advantage that you have in an attempt to get away, strike your opponent at their weakest."

"Is that what they teach you in GUN?"

"Somewhat. But most of it is self-taught. They don't have regulated matches out in the wild, Tails."

"Understood."

Shadow walked over and offered his hand. There was a brief moment before Tails grabbed his hand, and used the force to pull Shadow forward so he could swing his body around to strike Shadow's chest. His heel hit home and Shadow staggered back a bit before blocking Tails' follow up punch.

"Very nice work, Tails. Now you can take a _real_ break. We'll resume in ten minutes."

Tails leant his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath when a water bottle was shoved under his nose. He looked up, confused when he saw Wave, offering him it with a tentative look, "'S not smart to train dehydrated, even at night time where the air is cooler."

He raised an eyebrow at her before he took it and gulped down three mouthfuls, capping it and placing it on the ground, "Thanks." They sat down on the ledge that overlooked Crisis City, which was close to where Shadow and Tails had been training, which was over the makeshift plane landing. Feeling rejuvenated, he took the time to enjoy the cool air as it soothed the pulsing pain in his muscles. His movements were still a little shaky, and Wave took note of this, laughing a little at his expense.

"You find something funny?" he asked dryly.

"I was like you, when I was learning how to train," she admitted, eyes closing in nostalgia. "'Cept my mentor was a lot nicer than yours, and you're taking it a whole lot better than I did. I was constantly complaining and crying. Makes me realised that I was so completely pampered compared to you."

Tails eyes widened in shock, "Really?" Because she didn't act like it. She seemed to fit into Crisis just fine. The Babylonians were street culture in a nutshell.

"Yeah. I was a total brat. If I'd been like you… I could have gotten a lot more done."

The yellow fox nodded, taking another gulp of water, "What are you doing up here?"

"Got nothing else to do. I just finished up our gears and we haven't got a heist planned tonight. I'm in the clear."

"And so you find you'll entertain yourself by watching me get beaten to death?"

"You're improving," she stated, rather abrupt. Very Quickly.

"Stop lying," he growled. "I hurt all over, and I'm starting to get a headache. I don't need you to raise my hopes."

"Since when did you become such a pessimist?" she replied.

"I've always been a pessimist. Getting beaten into a pulp just made me more opinionated."

"Are you sure it isn't due to the influence of some unwanted characters?"

"I'm sure," Tails smiled lightly, chuckling quietly. The fox leaned in to read the time on the swallow's wrist before sighing. The dynamic between them had changed, and he had to admit that it was scary and thrilling at the same time. Just like riding Extreme Gear.

"Hey Wave?"

"Yeah?"

The words were a lump in his throat, but he gulped and pushed past that, his cheeks burning slightly, "Thanks, for what you did last night."

She shuffled her feet slightly, but her mouth had turned up in a smile. They were engulfed in a beautiful serenity. There was nothing but stars and wind about them. Nice thoughts. Awkward feelings. _Warmth._ It was-

"GET A ROOM!"

_"Fuck off, Jet!"_

_Yeah, _Tails cradled his head in his hands as he tried to stop the laughter bubbling up his throat, shaking his small frame, _I forgot how hard it is to get peace around here._

"It's _so_ good to be home."

"Times up, Prower. Battle stance, _now._"

"… I take it back."


	34. Flames to Embers

**domi|note:** It feels almost regrettable, giving away Caleb's secrets like this, especially after so long concealing them. This is a Caleb-centric chapter, and it doesn't _seem_ important to the plot, but if you don't read it you _will_ regret it later on. After this one, the focus comes back to Tails.

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **insidious fanboy**, **LordCooler**, **Metalshadow1909**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Exploder**, **Cross The Fox** and**DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the first chapter.

Happy Australia Day to my Aussie readers out there! Ch'yeah, and props to **insidious fanboy** for figuring out this plot twist a little while ago.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Confession is always weakness. The grave soul keeps its own secrets, and takes its own punishment in silence. ~Dorothy Dix<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Four  
>.<em>  
>"Wasn't it easier in your firefly catchin' days? And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you. Wasn't it beautiful runnin' wild 'til you fell asleep? Before the monsters caught up to you?"<br>…_  
>Innocent<em> by Taylor Swift

* * *

><p>"This is another defensive manoeuvre, to disarm an opponent," Shadow drawled as he bent his knees and side-stepped once. He was interrupted however, by a shattering of glass from inside The Black Arms. It echoed, and was soon followed by shouting, so he stalled the lesson to find out what was happening inside. Tails had a creeping feeling running down the back of his neck, saying that this was a bad idea, and he'd sooner regret stepping inside.<p>

"Come _back_ here you little _coward!_"

"_How _am I a coward from trying to avoid your punches? You haven't even told me why you're trying to _assault_ me!"

_Well, it looks like Caleb's secrets are reaching their apex, _Tails thought as he rushed into the fray and stopped Sonic from throwing another punch. The Blue Blur blinked, as if he hadn't seen Tails there a second ago. He probably hadn't.

"Sonic, what the hell are you doing?" Silver said from the third floor, hopping over the balcony to help sustain him. Shadow sat calmly at the side, observing the situation. Not everyone was here to witness this event. Amy was staying at Cream's house tonight, Knuckles was at The Garden Centre while Blaze and Marine were at their own apartments. Maybe Tails would have to fill them in later, even if they hadn't been demonstrating hostility towards Caleb. Knuckles was the only one that knew he was part of The Aloe Heist, but that might not have been the reason Sonic was assaulting him now.

"Have you heard the news lately, Silver?" Shadow asked him.

"Is this about the… aloe heist? Yes."

"And… You're not suspicious of him?"

Silver shifted from foot to foot, "He might be an annoying prick, but I don't think Snippy's a murderer."

"_Thank you, _Silver!" Caleb growled in exasperation, "See? Why can't you be like The White One over there, Sonic?"

"Tell me why your blood at the aloe heist matched Claudel Winchester's," said hedgehog snarled.

Caleb's knees were bent into a naturally defensive state, leaning up against the wall for support. He slowly rose to his full height, staring at Sonic with cold blue eyes. He then looked around dismissively, "Have you read the paper today?"

"Now's no time for idle chatter about Solean goings-on," he growled.

The brown fox snarled, "If you'd _bothered_ to read it today, you probably wouldn't _need_ me to repeat my life story. Take a look, idiot. _First_ page."

He threw Sonic a copy of the paper which had fallen off the coffee table, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning on the wall again. Silver was behind Sonic in an instant, reading over his shoulder.

"'The allegations of Claudel Winchester's involvement at the break in at The Docks have been dropped, due to several alibies of trusted citizens such as Jules Hedgehog and Captain Whiskers himself, plus not so trusted parties involving The Destructix and Mammoth Mogul. Surveillance footage reveals Claudel was in their company at the same time as the break in, eliminating him as a culprit. He _did_ reveal some useful information to us when brought into questioning though.'

"'Claudel reveals that his son, who has been missing for two years, could be the suspected party, seeing as around the same time he went missing, his data and records disappeared from Soleanna's databanks. He also declares that anyone that has seen him, or anyone that brings him to Winchester, will be awarded sixty-thousand rings. Unfortunately, when the police tried to contain the criminal, he made a speedy escape out of the facility'."

Sonic put down the paper, staring at it for a few more minutes before lifting up his head to stare at Caleb, who was looking down at the floor nervously. His hands were now in his pockets, a clearly defensive gesture.

"That's right," he said, after an eternity of silence. He looked up, staring Sonic right in the eyes, unfeeling, except for a small sliver of trepidation, "My name is Gabriel Caleb Winchester, and my father… is Claudel. I'm telling you now, that if you plan to hand me into that madman, I'm not going down without a fight."

"Of course we don't want that," Tails declared, walking over to Caleb's side. 'Gabe', the name that he'd used to fool MarDean made sense now. An alternate personality that Caleb _hated_ to the core, which he associated with his father. It was all so much to grasp. But it made so much sense now; the fact that Caleb always carries around his money is because he can't put them into a bank, most of his licenses were fake, it's why he never spoke about his parents, it's why he knew so much about the Black Market, why he had so many connections, it's why he worked so hard; because he didn't have a father to support him and his little sister.

"I don't get it…" Silver muttered, but in the silence of the building, it could have been a shout. "He's… He's seriously the kind of person that would murder his family?"

Caleb bit his lip and clenched his fists, he hung his head, and there was a brief trickle of something wet and shiny sliding down his cheek, "He-he killed my mom. He was… he was three seconds from slicing my neck open before Tails Doll rushed in and saved me. He jammed my paintbrushes into his throat… and that's why he can't speak anymore. And I was gonna stick _around? _No fucking way." He sounded like he was rambling now, just on the edge of a mental break down. "I knew he wouldn't hurt her, Lottie, I mean. Lottie looks like him. He wanted to kill me because I look like mom the most. But no… Living life like we do is better than seeing her grow up to become just like him."

The brown fox bunched his hands in his hair, sliding down the wall with his knees up to his chest, trying to ignore everyone around him. Tails knelt down and placed his hand on Caleb's shoulder before he was suddenly struck with a wave of fear and sadness so intense he had to shuffle backwards from force of it.

"Sorry, Tails…" Caleb murmured. So… this was what he'd meant when he said he 'radiated' his emotions. Tails could feel the other fox's doubt and depression seep into his very being. Empathy was such a difficult power to control. Maybe that's why he'd stopped himself from using it for so long, and surrounded himself with a protective shield of nonchalance and bitter words. "You're… you guys _will_ keep it a secret right? I can promise you, I don't want to hurt anyone, but I can't let that man get to me or my sister."

The brown fox rubbed his eyes with his wrists, but Sonic still didn't look convinced. Caleb must have felt his scepticism, because he reached back and retrieved his wallet, "I have a picture of my family from around five years ago. My old man has changed, but you should be able to ID him from me easily enough."

Tails took the photo from him and walked over to Sonic and Silver, who grasped the tatty old picture with interest, roving over the picture. The background was of a lavish estate, who's sleek designed rivalled that of The Violet Manor. The picture had been taken while the family was eating breakfast by some second party. It was quite clearly Claudel who was reading the paper, his food untouched before him. A beautiful black-haired, white fox was talking to a young infant in a high chair, that Tails automatically assumed was Lottie, judging from the fact that she _did_ look like her father. Caleb was the farthest from the camera with piece of toast sticking out of his mouth as he sketched something down in front of him, a sleek pair of glasses were slipping off his nose.

Caleb was right, he _did_ look the most like his mother. He had her eyes. He had her hair colour. He even had her nose. He didn't understand why Claudel would want to kill such a beautiful vixen.

"She… she looks a little familiar," Sonic murmured.

"Do you know why he'd want to kill her?" Silver asked.

"BECAUSE HE'S INSANE!" Caleb shouted, "How am I supposed to know why a husband would randomly want to kill his wife, and then try to attack his kid right after? He seemed _perfectly_ normal up until that night."

"Okay," Shadow sighed, "we'll keep your secret. But to do that, we're going to have to stop _speaking_ about it."

"But before we do-" Sonic interjected, giving the photo back to Tails, who ran over and gave it back to Caleb, "Tell me how you know my sister?"

"I don't know your sister," he growled.

_"Liar."_

"Sonic," Tails snarled. "Stop it."

"I'm sorry, Tails. But I can't trust someone I know nothing about, _especially_ when it comes to my family."

"I don't _know_ your sister, you deaf prick!" Caleb's eyes were fiery licks of blue as he got up onto shaky legs.

Sonic reached behind him and pulled out his phone, opening up the snap shot he'd taken of the picture Caleb had been speaking to, "Her! You don't know her?"

"_No. _Are you _listening_ to me? I sure she was a nice girl, but I don't fucking _know_ who she is," Caleb insisted.

"Well then why were you speaking to her picture at The Garden Centre? I'm sorry, but it can't get any creepier than saying 'I miss you' to picture of a girl you don't even know," the blue hedgehog accused.

Caleb glared daggers at Tails before he released a pent up breath and snatched Sonic's phone, pressing a few buttons and returning the device to Sonic with the picture zoomed in on the artist's signature at the bottom of the portrait, "I wasn't speaking to your sister. I was speaking to this."

"And your point is…?"

"Sonic…" Tails murmured, his eyebrows furrowed.

"My mom. My mom painted that picture of your sister, and all the _other_ pictures at Mystic Ruins Garden Centre."

"Your mom…?" Sonic murmured before his eyes went wide… "No… you can't seriously be-"

"For fuck's sake, how can I make it any clearer? My mother is Selina Heartnet Winchester! Yeah, artist of the high court, rich and all that shit. 'Heartnet' is her maiden name. 'Tragically died because of circumstances involving The Crimson Night'. Yeah-huh. _Bullshit._" Caleb scoffed, but it seemed as if he'd regained his composure.

"You? Being Selina's son? _That's_ bull." Sonic rolled his eyes, "Selina was the kindest person I'd ever met, how could you _possibly_ be related to her? If you are, prove it."

Caleb scowled darkly at Sonic before muttering so quietly it was almost inaudible, "Your father commissioned my mother to paint a family portrait once. I _know_ who he is."

Sonic visibly paled at that, and he gulped and shook his head, "Do you know anyone that can verify this information?"

The brown fox paused a second before nodding, "CJ. She was one that helped me wipe our names of The Soleanna Databases. Then there's Metal Knuckles, who commissioned all of the pictures in The Mystic Ruins Garden Centre. Do you think he would have even let me _in_ there if he didn't know who I was? I have a bad feeling that Marsali Scottmen, Welshscot's mom, could possibly know who I am, considering I spent a lot of time at Diamond Dust when my mom was commissioned by her when she was still in power. Probably not though. For the love of any deity out there, I hope she doesn't. There's Rouge, who knows because her GUN team was put in charge of investigating her murder and capturing my dad. Espio the chameleon, who used to be employed by my dad and was sent to capture me, and let me go instead. Plus Leilani Cesario, Chris Thorndyke, my friend Hope Kintobor, and Ash Mongoose who knew me before this happened…"

"You know Ash Mongoose?" Tails questioned.

"We were pals in Downunda."

Caleb turned to Shadow, jerking his head at Tails a bit, "I lied to Tails, I know who you are. And a lot more about your past then you do. At one point, you knew about me as well… because you were on the same squad as Rouge when investigating what happened during The Crimson Night. But then you forgot everything and I left the explanation to her."

"So… why can't you claim her money?" Silver asked, "You're secretly richer than all of us. Why do you live off crap in this stupid part of the city? Why don't you take care of your sister?"

"This still sounds like crap to me," Sonic scowled.

Caleb growled and decided to ignore him, answering Silver instead, which just _proved_ how angry he was right now, because Caleb was _never_ polite to Silver. "Because I'm not eighteen yet, plus I don't have a legal guardian. I'm not allowed to take care of Lottie, so I just turn up at Castle Town Orphanage a lot and scare off anyone that wants to adopt her. I can't access my mom's money because if I try I don't have any identification that can prove it, because we destroyed all of it when we were trying to run away from Claudel.

"Plus, if I _do_ try to take it, he'll track me down and kill me. Simple as that. That's why I live on _shit_ in this fucked up part of the city. I can't even afford the expenses for my sister's pet rabbit, which was the _only_ thing she got to keep after we changed our names. And now she hates me for it, because she thinks I won't pay for it because I don't want to and that I'm some kind of heartless monster that doesn't care about what she wants.

"So are we done here? Weedled all the gossip you wanted out of me? Happy that you've bled me dry and made me feel like _absolute __**shit?**_ I'm no murderer, but I will try to _maim _the next guy that accuses me of it. Thanks," he said to all of them, his words bleeding sarcasm, "you guys _really_ made my day." He walked up the stairs and closed his door with a slam that echoed throughout the entire building.

_Wasn't it easier in your firefly catchin' days?_  
><em>And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you.<em>  
><em>Wasn't it beautiful runnin' wild 'til you fell asleep.<em>  
><em>Before the monsters caught up to you?<em>

_It's alright, just wait and see,_  
><em>Your string of lights is still bright to me.<em>  
><em>Oh, who you are is not where you've been.<em>  
><em>You're still an innocent.<em>

_It's okay, life is a tough crowd,_  
><em>Seventeen and still growin' up now.<em>  
><em>Who you are is not what you did,<em>  
><em>You're still an innocent.<em>

_Time turns flames to embers, you'll have new Septembers._  
><em>Everyone of us has messed up too.<em>  
><em>Minds change like the weather, I hope you remember.<em>  
><em>Today is never too late to be brand new.<em>

_It's alright, just wait and see,_  
><em>Your string of lights is still bright to me.<em>  
><em>Oh, who you are is not where you've been.<em>  
><em>You're still an innocent.<em>

* * *

><p><em>Never Too Late<em> by Three Days Grace

* * *

><p>"Tails?" Wave asked, the next day while he was patching up another piece of extreme gear. Well… half of his attention was on the Extreme Gear, the second half was focusing on a search on his laptop with multiple tabs open all revolving around Caleb's parents and their investigation into their murder. The brown fox hadn't been seen all morning. No one heard him get up, but he wasn't in his room anymore or any other part of the Black Arms for that matter.<p>

"Yes?" he asked. He had a short pencil sticking out of his mouth because he had been scribbling down notes about the gear and what he needed to buy. The words came out muffled because of the writing utensil.

"Do you know what's wrong with Snippy?" she _actually_ sounded worried.

"Does that mean you've seen him?" he said, taking the pencil out of his mouth, "because the rest of us haven't since last night."

"He wasn't the reason there's a hole in the wall and three broken vases scattered on the floor, is he?" she murmured, wincing when Tails nodded solemnly.

"Well, the punch in the wall might have been from Sonic, but the both of them were fighting, so I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not blaming him though, Sonic made him say some stuff last night he didn't want to."

"Would that have anything to do with the aloe heist?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Jet mentioned it this morning while Caleb was headin' to work, mentioned the blood, mentioned the relation to Claudel, and he totally lost it. He kicked Jet in the stomach and managed to rip out a whole handful of feathers. Storm and I tried to sustain him, but Jet still crumpled to the ground as if he was in agony. It _really_ scared me, how angry he looked… I've never seen him that furious before, not even when we looked at his sketchbook without asking. Then again, he wasn't that angry then. When we asked him what was wrong, he just told us to fuck off."

"Sketchbook?" Tails asked in interest.

"Yeah, he was looking at it this morning before Jet approached him. He just left it there, on the bench that I normally use to fix gear."

Completely ignoring his conscience in favour of his curiosity, he went and grabbed the sketchbook, pulling it closer while she shuffled some papers aside and pulled out six prints he'd made of Selina's paintings. He laid them next to the sketchbook and opened it, gasping when he saw Caleb's work. 'Artsy' wasn't the first thing you thought of when you saw Caleb. You'd think 'punk', 'vandal' or 'hobo'. Definitely _not_ 'artist'.

Wave made an 'oh' sound next to him before snapping her fingers, "I _knew_ Snippy's style looked familiar! He must have based them off Selina's work."

"Yeah…" Tails laughed humourlessly as he compared the skill and finesse of both the artists. "He paints just like his mother."

Wave gasped and started choking on air, it would have been comical, but after last night nothing seemed that funny anymore. It was as if Heartnet had taken all the joy out of the place, even though Tails knew that was impossible. How was he supposed to explain to Amy, Cream, Blaze and Marine what had happened? Shadow had gone sulking off to Rouge to ask how much GUN cadets knew about who he was, and Knuckles… he had absolutely no idea what had happened to him. Sonic had run out to find Caleb with Silver, because he knew he had to apologise now.

"Fox-boy said _what_ now?"

"It's true," Tails admitted, printing out some more sheets. "I e-mailed CJ this morning, and she hacked into the Solean police records and analysed the blood taken at the aloe heist, compared to old records of Selina Winchester. She sent me a copy. See? They match. She sent me a copy of Claudel's blood analysis as well, they matched as well."

"Holy fuck. Do you know how much this sketchbook is worth? _Millions._ Just being _related _to Selina has given him credibility, but inheriting her _talent_ as well. Heartnet would be able to regain his forty thousand and more. Each of Selina's paintings are worth thousands of rings, some of them are _worth_ five million at the least. Why doesn't Caleb claim any of that money?"

"He can't. It's a long story…" Tails murmured, examining each of the pictures.

"Hey Tails?" Wave reached over and flipped the sketchbook to a picture of a really pretty girl, dated back to three years ago, "Do you know who she is?"

"Do you know her name?" Tails asked.

"Arielle Truscott."

"No… but Caleb mentioned something about a GUN Leader Nathaniel Truscott."

"… Okay, so he still hasn't told you absolutely _everything_ yet."

"Typical," Tails said. He closed the sketchbook and placed it back where it was before turning back to Wave who was skimming through the tabs on his laptop.

"Get this! Claudel is anti-mutant, and apparently some kind of blatant homophobic."

"Where? Let me see!"

They smooshed themselves up against each other, as they read the articles. "Yeah, apparently his son admitted to being _gay_somewhere around four years ago. He couldn't stand the sight of him, or the fact that he was always getting bullied, so he sent his son to the nearest GUN Academy to toughen up, which just happened to be Downunda."

"Now that I think about it… Tikal said something really interesting…"

_"Why'd you say it like that? Is it a girlfriend or something?"_

_"She's a human. Besides. He isn't like that."_

_"Isn't like what?"_

Laughing. She was _laughing. Why _didn't he get it?_ "Don't worry about it…"_

"Oh Solaris! _That's_ what she meant!"

"You mean about Caleb being gay? I don't think so, not anymore anyway. Did you look through the sketchbook properly? Half of it's comprised of him being lovey-dovey with this 'Arly' girl."

"Maybe he's bi then…" he murmured before a shock ran through him and he knocked his head lightly with his fists. "I feel like such a gossip mongerer."

"Don't worry, we all do it."

He sighed, trying to ignore the ache in his heart, "If you say so… I still feel bad for putting him through this. If he hadn't organised the aloe heist for me, then this wouldn't have happened."

Was reached over and roughed his bangs up a bit, "I know what'll take your mind off of this situation."

"What?" he asked sceptically.

"Extreme Gear! C'mon let's race!" she declared excitedly. It sounded so childish he wanted to laugh.

"Are you sure?"

"C'mon Kitty," she urged. "Fighting isn't the only prep you need to beat the second round of The Grand Prix."

_That was an insult wasn't it?_ He gave her a cocky smile and scooped up his gear. Closing the laptop and then the garage. Maybe, if he spent a few hours trying to forget it all, his problems would fade away… if only for a little while.

It didn't stop Rouge from slapping Sonic across the face the next time she saw him.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>Oh Sonic. You just don't know how to handle children. REVIEW!~


	35. Scottmen, CJ, and Tid Interview FILLER

**R/L AN (Welsh):** Hey-up, the guy who writes Welshscot speaking. Now I know you haven't heard from me in awhile and some of you are wanting to know what happened at the Iron Domain and how exactly did Adam Mecha die? (By the way, the name Adam Mecha was taken from A.D.A.M Robotnik and Mecha Robotnik.) Well I have been working hard in my real life and Welshal-

_WELSHSCOT!_

I'M WELSHSCOT AT THE MOMENT! WE CAN'T BOTH BE BLOODY WELSHSCOT AT THE SAME TIME!

_I hate being called Welshald..._

How about Welshaldy?

_..._

I thought so. Anyway, Welshald is being a bit stubborn, but not to worry. It is all taken care of. But since I've had a hard, boring day, I've decided to do something random and funny. Since I felt left out with the filter chapter, I have taken upon myself to do my own interview... But instead of one bad mouthed prat... *Caleb scowls at the fourth wall*... This interview is gonna be for my three OCs! I have ignored all boundaries of time and space and dragged them from the story, using the power of disclaimers, but I still feel that the questions should be asked by a certain gang leader we all should know by now. Take it away, M Knucks!

**MK:** 'right, folks, this is gonna have the same questions as last time, but we're gonna have three people answering them. **Warning:**Anything could happen, being it rude or downright crazy, due to the presence of Welshscot (the one in the story, not the one at the keyboard).

_Welshscot (Welshald Scottmen), _Hjalmar Tid and **CJ **Interview

1. What's your name?

This is one of those rare moments when I agree with Caleb.

**So you think we should be asking questions about bestiality?**

*In an annoyed tone* Why do they have this question at the start of the interview? _It's pointless, _we could start with something creative** – **that doesn't involve human on animal.

_*Sarcastically* Maybe my writer put this in so we can explain how the responses work._

**What's that supposed to mean?**

_*Sighs* I mean how we can talk without having to put our names up a thousand times. Since there are three of us, he's splitting up the bold, that's you CJ, the italics, for me and the underline for you, Hjalmar._

Ok... Wait, why am I the one being underlined?

**MK:** Okay, moving on...

2. Do you know what you were named after?

**I'm basically the OC that Welshaldy **_(WELSHSCOT) _**made up for his friend CJMes12. I'm just here to annoy Welshaldy**_(WELSHSCOT DAMN IT) _**and make sure he doesn't do something stupid.**

_*Muttering* Says the one who got captured by a bunch of whores. *After receiving an evil glare from you know who... no, not that you know who, this isn't Harry Potter.* My name, Welsha… *grumble* was made up from my Writer's nickname. He did it for comical reasons; aka, continuous torture and embarrassment._

My name is the only one that has real meaning to it. Hjalmar means 'the helmeted one' in Norwegian, which fitted me because I always wear a ski mask, and Tid means 'time', which is referring to my ability... Can you now tell me why my text is underlined?

**MK:** And now onto the next question-

Hey, you haven't answered me yet!

**MK:** I don't need to; I'm the interviewer and I have all the power here.

Like hell you do, you _stikk..._*Hjalmar quickly found himself hanging off Big Ben's clock face over a large crate of wolves* ...Wolves are extinct in Britain. *He quickly added, before the rope the held in the air snapped* All right, next question please.

3. Are you single or taken?

**I am single and will probably stay single for the rest of my life. I'm not interested in having a relationship; torturing Welshscot, when I can, is more than enough for me. I leave it to him and Hjalmar to do the groping.**

I'm single and have never had a serious relationship, but Welshscot and I are friends with benefits. That is all I have to say...

_Ditto, though I have something to say. I am not interested in having a serious relationship ever a–_

MAKA CHOP!

_*Welshscot was sent flying to the floor; a hand shaped dent on his ginger scalp. Pulling his face out of the dirt, the medic asked, with a suppressed tone of anger.* Wot the De'il; why is Maka Albarn here! This is Sonic, not Soul Eater!_

**MK:** Because I wanted to see her Chop in action.

_And you chose me because...?_

**MK:** Next question time!

4. Have any abilities or powers?

**Besides from being able to hack into anything I want, I'm a normal girl. I can still kick ass.**

*Mutters* Says the girl caught by-

**MK, can you dangle him off Big Ben again?**

**MK:** No, but the Empire State building will do. *Sure enough, Hjalmar was dangling off the small pole on top of the Empire State building; while a bunch a bee hives was waiting for him at the bottom.

...Why am I getting punished more than Welshscot? *When no one answered, and when the rope began to snap like last time, he quickly changed the subject.* I have the power to bring a person who has died within 24 hours back to life by being able to back in time from their point of view and correct the mistake that had taken their lives. It's called Mental Echo, my limit is saving four people a day, unless I want to freeze solid for a week, and can you please get me DOWN!

*Grudgingly, MK freed Hjalmar from falling... and dropped him into the Nile instead*

_My power is to get power boosts from alcoholic drinks, depending on what I drink. I stick to Scotch Whiskey, which enhances my strength and speed/ but it can make me go berserk if I drink too much/, and Welsh Wine, which allows me to breath fire like a dragon/ again, if I have too much I lose control and start belching fire in every direction. But I can use other drinks for different effects. I can even mix them to gain a combined power (Spoiler)_

_I also have my scaled arm, which is bullet proof with the exception of HGO bullets. I have other perks to, but I don't want to talk about them._

**MK:** Fine, I'll let that slide for now. But only because Hjalmar is getting out of the Nile with the full intent of beating me up. I need to keep him busy.

5. Stop being a Mary-Sue.

**I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a character based off a real life person my writer knows and I'm nothing like her and I'm not that great. The only thing we share is the job of annoying Welshscot and if that's that being a Mary Sue, since my writer is still a little confused by the term, then I honestly don't give one!**

Technically you'd call me a Gary Stu, but besides that I don't care if I am or not. I am still confused about it, but if it's about being a character who gets it easy then hell no; and if it's being based of the writer then see the last answer. My writer doesn't know a thing about forensics or Norway, he's just finding out about it because he wanted a friend for Welsh here *cough* Mary Sue...

_What? For crying out loud, I'm not a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu! *After getting three looks of disbelief* So I share the same nickname, that's the only thing we have in common. My writer doesn't want to be a physiatrist nor has ginger hair—_

**MK:** Okay, sensible Welshscot needs to go. Get the Whiskey and... The Aloe Vera!  
><em><br>WHAT! DON'T YOU DARE! _*But Hjalmar was quick to pin him to the ground; restraining the medic from getting up. While MK and CJ brought out the liquids, Welsh said, in a way to get his own back.*

_Do you know the reason why your text in underlined, Hjalmar? Because you're always the one who walks away with an aching backside!_*Before the drinks were forced downs his throat, Hjalmar brained him a couple of times with the Whisky bottle.*

**MK:** Now things are getting interesting. Here's the next question.

6. If you were to get in a fight with a strong wrestler, do you think you'd win?

**I have no need to fight, Welsh does that for me. It is our arrangement; I provide the verbal abuse while he takes my physical assaults, for I would just get creamed by any wrestler.**

As long as they're the same weight as me I can take on a wrestler no problem. I can go toe to toe with bigger opponents, but chances are I would lose unless I'm really lucky.

_*While being tangled in the ropes of a wrestling ring* THIS JUST HAPPENS EVERY TIME! NEVER MIND WINNING, I NEVER GET TO START A MATCH!_

7. Have any family members?

**My parents live in New Town and are still pestering me to rejoin the police. Welshscot and Hjalmar are like brothers to me, but I haven't got any actual siblings.**

My dad is still on ice after trying to bring my mum back to life. Ever since she got killed by Mammoth Mogul when I was a kid, he tried everything to bring her back. When I discovered my powers after the massacre, he started paying an interest in me because he thought my power could bring mum back to life...*he trailed off, refusing to speak any more; not matter how many building MK threw him off.*)

_...I REALLY DON'T KNOW! THERE'S A WOMAN, NAMED MARSALI, WHO CLAIMS TO BE MY MOTHER! BUT I'M A HALF DRAGON AND MY DAD WAS HUMAN-ISH! HOW CAN SHE BE MY MOTHER WHEN SHE'S SUCH A BITCH? AND I THINK- *Welshscot then began to punch himself in the face. He grabbed his self-attacking limb, only to be replaced by his right foot as he began to kick himself in the face. This went on until MK asked the next question.*_

8. How about pets?

**Welshscot is my pet. He's like a crazy, cross bred guard dog which knows how to heal wounds but can't look after himself. He's not so bad now, but he's far from house broken.**

Looking after animals isn't my forte. My job is to cut up dead bodies, and animals make great practice dummies. *MK, on behalf of all animal lovers, personally fed Hjalmar to scorpions. But since he's a part of this story, no matter how minor it is, he was kept alive by the power of disclaimers. Or the scorpions just threw him up.*

_MY BEST FRIEND LIKES TO DISSECT RANDOM ANIMALS, DO YOU REALLY THINK I HAVE A PET?_

9. Tell me something you don't like.

**Since Caleb did his top five things he didn't like, from his long list of such things, I'll say mine. A guy who keeps asking me out when I don't know him, Haggis **_(BLASPHEMY)__**, **_**Milk in my cereal, people reading over my shoulder and being injected with nanites.**

People who keep killing themselves after I've save them from an accidental death, people who think I am being selfish when I won't bring a person back to life /after/ my 24 hour limit, people touching my Forensic tools, butterscotch _(HERETIC)_and sleeping in beds. Do not ask me why or I will slice open your pets...Hell, I might do that anyway. Sounds fun.

_I HATE PEOPLE WHO JUDGE OTHER PEOPLE WITHOUT _GETTING_ TO KNOW THEM FIRST, ENGLISH FOOD, MARSALI THE BITCH, PEOPLE WHO TRY TO READ MY EMOTIONS AND MY REAL NAME! AND AS OF TODAY, I HATE YOU GUYS FOR GIVING ME ALOE VERA! YOU DO REMEMBER THE FACT THAT I DON'T GET ANY RECREATIONAL BENEFITS FROM DRUGS OR ALCOHOL BECAUSE MY BODY'S BIOLOGY IS ALTERED SO MY LIVER DOESN'T GET DAMAGED BY ALCOHOL! DO YOU ALSO REMEMBER THAT DRUGS, EXCEPT FOR PAIN KILLERS, CAUSE ME PAIN AND CAN KILL ME UNLESS BALANCED, LIKE FUCKING ALOE VERA! *As he shouted this, with a twisted smile on his overly happy face, blood started to dribble down his nose.*_

**MK:** Way to kill the mood, Welshscot. *MK was promptly given a quick, unorthodox version of Ring around a Roses; in which his hips were dislocated and spun round, his nose punched in and out of shape and then finally judo flipped onto the ground. So severe were the injuries that Fina had to replace MK while he went to Tikal for treatment. As an added safety measure, Fina waited for Welsh to calm down before asking questions.*

10. Something that you don't do well?

**I'm not very good at fighting, to be honest. I can fight, but... Well; you saw what happened with the Iron Domain.**

I am useless at computers. Unless it's an Extreme Gear or something to do with Forensics, technology throws me a loop.

_Screw this, I've got a headache and answering these questions is just too much trouble-_

MAKA CHOP!

_*After pulling his face from out of the ground* I'm still not going to answer your question. Besides, the Maka Chop doesn't hurt-_

REAPER CHOP!

_*Welshscot was nailed into the floor until only his head was sticking out.* I refuse to acknowledge anything that is outside the Sonic Universe._

**Fina:** Is that so? Then how about this? FINA CHOP! *She brought her bionic hand down upon the hybrid's noggin, and as it made its dent, used the power of disclaimers to add an electric charge; resulting in a semi fired medic*

_FINE! I'M NOT GOOD AT LIVING FOR MYSELF. HAPPY?_

**Fina:** Oh, stop being Caleb.

11. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do?

**I like drawing Manga. Hacking and annoying Welsh are more like a full time job.**

Extreme Gears are my current hobby as is dissecting animals. I use to run a Pro-Mutant detective agency that my dad founded years ago. I took over after my dad... Anyway, I stopped running it after OW! *Welshscot had elbowed him in the gut*

_Being a Medic and a Physiatrist is my job, and all my interests are aimed to help other people; not for my own joy._

**Come on, Welshaldy, what about that thing you picked up the Iron—**

_No spoilers, CJ, and it's WELSHSCOT DAMN IT!_

12. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before?

**I... I kinda ditched Welshscot for three years after the massacre went down. My parents managed to drag me to New Town to finish cop training. He says he didn't mind, since he believed that what I wanted, but I do still feel guilty about it.**

There's a list of people I've hurt and I haven't got time to list every murderer or punk I've taken down. If I've ever hurt someone emotionally then it would be my dad; but I don't want to talk about it.

_I think the bit with MK answered your question._

13. Ever... killed anyone before?

_**...No comment**_

**Fina:** Don't worry, nothing you say will be taken as evidence and used against you in a court of law.

**Shade:** Says the lawyer.

**Fina:** Get stuffed, Shade.

**Well, to be honest, I haven't actually killed anyone yet. But being around a guy who cuts open animals for a hobby and someone who hangs out with an axe murderer, I'm not exactly innocent to the sight of guts and gore.**

I plead justified self defence. I have only ever killed to protect myself.

**Including the animals?**

...They were planning premeditated murder.

**I wonder why.**

**Fina:** Quiet, you two. It's Welshscot's turn.

_...I sometimes have a fatality when I'm treating a patient. But it's true that I...'accompany' TD sometimes. But the only time I have ever killed in cold blood was Ivan Pick, that spineless bastard._

Well he is now, thanks to you.

**Fina:** ... Anyway... Next question.

14. What kind of animal are you?

**Do I look like I have a tail?**

... My dad is a Mobian husky, if that's what you mean.

_I have scales and I can breathe fire, what'd you think my mother was?_

**Lacy:** A lizard?

**Kelp:** He means a dragon, Lacy. When could a lizard breathe fire?

**Lacy:** Fire salamanders, from Harry Potter.

**Kelp:** ... Are you really that blonde?

**Lacy:** But I'm a flamingo.

**Kelp:** No, you're a mango.

**Lacy:** ...and people call me dumb.

15. Name your worst habit.

**Throwing out all of the milk in the fridge, I hate the stuff.**

Killing a person who annoys me and then bring said person back to life, so I can kill said person again.

_It's not really a habit, but I'm an accident magnet. I always end up getting into strange accidents that are random; like being pushed down a flight of stairs, a ball hitting me through a glass window and, on a particular day without fail, a paper crane falls out of the sky and it lands between my clothes and fire._

***Grinning* I remember last year; you had to tear off all your clothes because the crane set fire to your trousers.**

_Well I find it annoying, so I can't wait to find out whose dropping cranes everywhere._

16. Do you look up to anyone at all?

**L from Death Note because he is awesome. I honestly don't look up to any one in AooDD universe.**

Stein from Soul Eater is my idol**'I wonder why?' **And the only person I've ever looked up to was the man who looked after me when my dad was off on investigations when I was a kid, Terri Cooper. But he died at the massacre; and I don't believe that he is Metal Sonic.

_Itachi from Naruto 'cause I like the fact he put on being evil to hide his true intentions. I strived to be like my dad when I was a kid. But now I look up to TD, because he—_

**MK:** I'M BACK, YOU SHEEP-SHAGGING BASTARD, AND YOU'RE GONNA PAY! ALL TOGETHER NOW!

MAKA/REAPER/FINA CHOP!

_*Welshscot's skull barely managed to survive the triple hit combo and was swiftly sent into the ground, past the Earth's core until he shot out on the other side of the planet, in a strange country called Australia. He was quickly sent back, since he didn't have his passport on him.*_

**Kelp:** Let's get this over with before this turns ugly...erLacy: ...Agreed...

17. Sexuality?

**Straight, but not interested.**

Girls usually annoy me, let's leave it at that.

_I grab both sides of the ring, if you know what I mean. NOW QUICKLY ASK THE NEXT QUESTION BEFORE- *At that moment, Welshscot found himself hanging out of the Space Colony ARk. He would have made a snide remark, but he can't talk right now due to the suffocation of space.*_

18. Do you go to school?

**We're all educated and we went to the same school. Welshscot was as well, but he's dead at the moment.**

19. Ever want to marry and have kids?

**I think I've already said about not wanting a relationship. And I really don't want kids.**

It's never gonna get serious between me and Welshscot. I don't intend to get hitched to anyone really.

_..._

Hold on, let me revive him.

*While he did that, Fina did her best to restrain the urges MK will get when Welshscot is alive again.*

_Ok, what was the question? *Reads* ...No, not in a cold chance of hell. Do I look like father material? What kind of husband would I be to anyone? In the words of Prentis: This question is the epitome of idiocy and I refuse to answer it!_

20. Do you have any fangirls/fanboys?

**Definitely not. Hey, that reminds me, Caleb still has to pay the ransom for his hat!**

**Caleb:** I'M BROKE, DAMN IT!

**THEN SUFFER!**

... Ok... I don't really know. If there are any, then they can do me a favour and send me an animal they might have lying around. I get bored easily and cutting up animals is a great way to pass the time. And you think I'm joking.

_I know I have one fangirl, whose name is Miss-Monochrome. So when my possessions start to vanish, I know who to look for._

And we're done. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

*CJ, Hjalmar, Fina, Kelp and Lacy all took cover as MK unleashed a bombardment of so many weapons upon Welshscot it would take hours to list them all. After the ammo ran short and the handles began to wobble, MK then threw Welshscot into a cave and destroyed the entrance. He then left Welsh, leaving a small sign saying 'Not to be opened until next chapter'*

_... Can this get any worse...?_

**Excalibur:** FOOL!

_... Fuck my life..._

**domi|note: **Next chapters to be in soon, but reviews always help reel 'em in faster, if you get what I mean. Updates from here on out might slow down considering school starting again and all. Fuck junior year. Seriously.

**Caleb:** Wow, that was really depressing.

**domi: **Who's supposed to be in the emo corner right now? Stop breaking the fourth wall!

**Caleb: ***flips author off*

**domi: **So review or else... um... I'll fill Tails' Extreme Gear with strawberry jam or something.


	36. As Much As You Secretly Mean To Me

**domi|note: **Haha. Changed my username and profile pic because I'm a fangirl (and 2012, might wanna go with something different, eh?) Wonderful, delicious people can still call me **Domi** though, or 'clinically insane', 'that crazy chick' or 'gummi worm'.

Thanks to **Exploder**, **LordCooler**, **(anonymous)**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Fanfic412**, **Metalshadow1909**, **DaddlerTheDalek**,**Stonefaced610**, **Undead009**, **LookMaNoSpaces (otherwise known as SmallSpeck)** and **insidious fanboy** for reviewing the last chapter.

_(anonymous)- _Did you _really_ see it coming? I didn't think I made it that obvious. What gave it away? I bet it was 'Twilight'. Haha. That hint was supposed to correspond with the fact that Caleb was always spending time in the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre to look at the pictures. Lol. He's still got a lot of secrets to reveal, but I guess the next one won't be revealed for another fifteen to twenty chapters. Yes. Caleb's fate with Arly _did_ end tragically. You guys can tell, huh? Considering the fact that he refers to her in past tense. Plus their theme song is _Love the way you lie Part 2 _by Rihanna feat. Eminem. What? I'm a music student, what do you expect of me? Caleb's relationship with Arly and his father all link into each other at one point in several strange plots twists.

_SmallSpeck- _Poor Jet. He seems to be my butt-monkey as of late. Well, you already know Cal is bi, so it could totally work. And 'mindfuck' is two words smushed together. (lol, I'm such a troll!) And props to **Smallspek **for the Crimson Night idea.

*mutters* I can't believe you people actually _care_ about this jackass. *is strangled with hemp bracelets.*

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em><em>Flirtation: attention without intention. ~Max O'Rell, John Bull and His Island<em>  
><em>…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Five  
>.<em>  
>"Princess, why you so contagious? Every single step, breaks every single breath. Tell me anything and everything will be okay."<br>…_  
>Wind <em>by Akeboshi_  
><em>

* * *

><p>He toppled off his board, twisting himself so that he landed on the ground next to the well rested swallow, who was examining him with interest. Wave didn't know where the hell in Crisis City she was going, but she still managed to get to <em>all<em> of their destinations faster than he did. It was a different factor every time, and it reminded him that he still had a ways to go before he could _ever_ think of beating any of the Babylon Rogues.

Wave turned around corners faster than he did, her overall speed was higher, her terrain duration was longer, and her _tricks, _they were phenomenal! She used grinding rails and passageways he never thought to use, like lamp posts and balconies. Plus she could fit _six_ tricks into one massive jump, often incorporating other smaller moves into another until it looked like she was dancing.

_Solaris, _he thought, _I'm starting to remember why I became a fanboy._

"I am _so_ behind," he wheezed, trying to get the air back in his system. "How long have you been resting here?"

"About ten minutes," she laughed, pulling off her bandana so that her rarely seen bangs flopped in front of her face. Tails stared at her for a second, entranced before turning away embarrassed. He had absolutely no idea why though, so he decided to brush it off and analyse the emotion later. Caleb wouldn't do it for him, but he was _so_ worried about what had happened to the brown fox.

"Hey Tails…"

"Yes?" he asked, lying down on the grass. She followed as she tried to rearrange her words into sentences. Her sentences were hesitant and wary.

"Shadow left in a hurry this morning… and… It's different you know, the tale differs from country to country, but I want to know about it from a Solean's perspective."

"What?" he murmured, a little worried by her tone.

"Could you tell me about The Crimson Night?"

Tails back straightened and he looked around him to make sure nobody had heard before looking down at the perplexed Wave, "We don't like to speak about it?"

"Why? Is it a delicate subject?"

"No, because Eggman will kill us if he finds out."

"Okay, I never heard that one before."

Tails looked around, "But it looks like this place is pretty deserted, so it should be fine."

They were in a park that bordered on the edge of Crisis City and Castle Town. The Crisis City inhabitants had already locked up for the night, should unwanted visitors come out to play. And the Castle Town citizens didn't want to be seen anywhere near Crisis. They were in the clear.

"The Crimson Night happened four years ago, as of next February, it'll be five years. What have you heard about it?"

"That it was a city-wide devastation, and the months after it were so completely unbearable."

"Well, it was something like that. Silver used to make jokes about it. He'd say 'The Crimson Night started when Shadow would steal Rouge's lipstick, put it on and dress in drag. Millions died laughing'."

Wave rested her hands on her stomach and laughed a bit, before the sadness sunk into her expression again, "What _really_happened? Charities don't get started for a reason, and the Red Crane Charity was specifically focused on The Crimson Night victims. It must have been pretty bad. We're all left with our personal wounds from something this bad."

"Yeah," he leant back on the grass, not noticing the tear streaming from his eye until Wave gasped.

"Tails? Are you alright?"

Tails shifted her head to look at her with confusion before he wiped his eyes, "I'm sorry. I seriously thought I was all cried out, but apparently I'm not."

"Is it about MarDean?" she whispered, but he smiled and shook his head.

"No… You said that we all have our personal wounds. The Crimson Night took _her_ away from me. The first girl I ever loved."

"I… I'm sorry."

"Mmm," he hummed, breathing in and closing his eyes. "I'll explain everything I know."

"… Okay."

Tails sifted through his memories, recalling those that he had tried to keep buried for the last four years, "It started while I was living with Sonic in an old abandoned apartment. I'd just started fixing gears for other people, and he was still in high school working part time for Rapidi Solis. The orphanage that had been taking care of us was bankrupt, and Amy was living with Vanilla and Cream.

"I remember when this started; we'd thought it was a huge dust storm, right? The skies were turning red because we assumed red matter had been blown in from a different part of the country. We thought it was supposed to be some kind of grand surprise, because the 'Fire in the Sky Festival', which celebrates The Black Comet's return was supposed to be happening three days later.

"But no… I'd been outside with Sonic when he told me to run over to the Freedom Fighter's HQ and take shelter. But what I saw on the way there was absolutely devastating. A huge vortex appeared in the red clouds above us and out of it dropped these_creatures._ I was an idiot and stopped to look at them, but a gigantic hulking form came to me and picked me up. He broke my arm and twisted one of my tails before I managed to get free and run to FF HQ. I was _so_ scared."

"Forms? What do you mean?"

He shrugged, "Extra terrestrials. Galactic life forms. _Aliens._"

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that."

"It doesn't really matter what you believe and what you don't. Everyone is Soleanna's afraid of aliens because of what happened that night."

She sighed before nodding, "Okay."

"You should have seen Shadow when we found him. You know how he's all artsy and stuff? Before we could get him to speak to us, the only thing he ever did was draw sketches of these monsters. He might still have them somewhere. Anyway, these monsters continued to terrorise us continuously, I can still remember the bloodshed on the streets. The sound of crying, screaming, and people were being _torn apart_."

"What happened?"

"The Fallen Angel came to us, and helped to combat against these monsters, apparently one of the only people that could. There are only a few people that know what 'The Seraph' looks like; very few of them are civilians willing to share their secrets. And the rest of them are GUN agents who have been sworn to secrecy. Some of them have been blinded by the Fallen Angel's magic. They said all they saw was red. Red fire. Some say blue. Blue light. But most of the time, it is red.

"GUN came right before the Fallen Angel's appearance, how they'd managed to sneak into Soleanna, we'll never figure out. But some of the GUN agents were taken by these malevolent beings and tortured. They came back with unique mutant powers that no one had _ever_ seen before; the ability to control people's blood, ventriloquists-people that could speak with other's voices, achieved by _cutting_ out their tongues, sorcerers, illusionists, and a very powerful form of necromancer that sent the bodies of zombies after their loved ones, craving for their flesh. It was _so_ horrible."

Tails recalled the gruesome memories, shuddering and trying to suppress the tears welling up in his eyes.

"The most famous case was that of Leilani Cesario who originally had the power to experience other's people's nightmares. But when she came back from the alien's clutches, she could _manipulate_ and control people's fear, force people into what they're most scared of, drive people to suicide. And when their thoughts became troublesome, she just killed them.

"She had the skills as a GUN combatant, and the intelligence of an agent. She was the perfect pawn for their evil means. She became immune to the toxic red-purple ooze which the aliens left all around the place, and drinking aloe vera made her monstrous, causing dozens at a time to commit suicide at the same time. But unlike all the other subjects taken into The Crimson Night, Leilani recovered from their control."

"Does anyone know why they did this?"

"Some of the blind people that witnessed the Fallen Angel kept on rambling something about 'redemption', 'lost blood' and 'Chaos Emeralds'."

"That's ridiculous. Chaos Emeralds don't exist."

"Yes they do. I had one for a little while."

"Bull."

"I'm serious. Just ask Knuckles. He gave it to me. I wanted to see if it could power planes as a replacement for electricity."

"Okay. Okay."

"Well, eventually people came to fear the Fallen Angel too because rumour spread around that he was _also_ part of their army. It didn't matter that he was trying to help us; anyone associated with those monsters was instantly a threat. I spent most of the months following the Crimson Night helping Doctor Quack heal the innocents caught up in battles between Soleanna guards, GUN an the aliens. I was also helping one of Sonic's friends take care of him, because he was always getting hurt. Sonic was leader of the Freedom Fighters back then, and I was always sending back e-mails with one of his new friends who went by the initials 'SR'.

"There was a huge incident where Eggman's old mansion was completely destroyed, and right after it, Extreme Gear was banned. No one knows why though. Most people know how the months following the Crimson Night ended. Apparently GUN, the aliens and Eggman had a huge free-for-all fight in Eggman's largest research labs, blowing it up. The huge crater that had resulted from it is where the current Egg Dome is now. Witnesses weren't blinded this time. They saw a streak of gold in the sky, which they thought was a falling star, and then they saw a _huge_ sphere of pulsing red energy before anyone within six kilometres was instantly annihilated, save for some who'd managed to find underground shelters. The Red Crane Charity was created soon after to help the victims of _this_ incident and anyone that was affected."

"I see."

"Why did you need to know about the Crimson Night?" he murmured, watching as she looked down, contemplating her answer. The orange sunlight splayed across her violet feathers was so heartbreakingly beautiful for those silent seconds, and then she turned her sky blue eyes on him and muttered her answer.

"The Crimson Night took someone special away from me too."

They stayed like that for the longest time before he looked down and laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"This eerie atmosphere isn't helping me forget about my problems. In fact, you're reminding me of all the problems I forgot about," he was laughing about it though. Weird kid.

She rolled her eyes before getting up, "Let's get some ice cream then."

"Your treat?"

"Of course, you're the pretty one after all."

Tails flushed, pouting angrily, "I was just asking because I left my _wallet_ behind. And whatever, you're the one that asked me out anyway." He gasped, clamping his hands over his mouth when he'd realised what he'd said.

Wave didn't acknowledge the fact that they were, in fact, on a date. And he hadn't even realised it until now.

"Are you coming, Kitty?"

He tried to will away the embarrassed flush as he muttered curses under his breath, following her to the nearest ice cream parlour.

* * *

><p><em>All I Have <em>by The Veronicas

* * *

><p>"Hey Wave; I reckon it's my turn to ask a question now."<p>

"Go on, Shorty. Shoot."

Tails sucked on his spoon of mint ice cream before dumping it back into his cup and asking his question, "They say that Babylonians have the most accurate rendition of how Extreme Gear was made."

"Of course we do," she laughed, eyes sparkling with amusement. "My ancestors created Extreme Gear."

"Tell me how it originated."

"Do you really want to know?" she grinned, pushing her bangs out of her face as she sipped at her mango milkshake.

"Make it clear, I have to repeat it to my friend Nicole down at Freedom HQ," he answered, cradling his cheeks in his hands while she slumped over the desk between them. Omega Milkshake Bar was almost deserted anyway, and they were speaking quietly enough.

"Okay, okay," she laughed. "Legend goes like this; our air god Enlil helped to seal a part of Solaris in Argus' Prison, the Twilight Cage. That bit everyone knows, but the genies of that era didn't like the fact that their people were now confined to the ground, because all of their wings had been taken away. That's why avians fear the solar eclipses now, because when Solaris was trapped inside his earthly forms, the solar eclipse meant the loss of their wings. And for some reason, birds can't fly during them. It's something about the gravity control.

"Anyway. The legendary Prince of Babylon Jet'akai, was asked by the guardian Angelus to find Enlil's Jewelled Sceptre and the legendary Ark of the Cosmos, which was lost in the fall of Babylon Garden, so that they might be able to find a way to regain Babylonian wings. To help him on his quest, Angelus gave Jet'akai a gift; a magic carpet.

"To find the Arks of the Cosmos, he had to find each marker, which was set at shrines depicting different coloured rings. We call them 'The Seven World Rings'. He ended up fighting against old subjects of Solaris, demon monsters and followers of Argus; because they believed he was trying to unleash the beast their god had sealed away in the first place. There were also rogues and assassins that wanted to kill the prince, because of the treasure he kept on him, plus the fact that he was finally leaving the kingdom for the first time ever."

"How does the story end?"

"No one actually knows. For some reason, the records just end sometime around there. Everyone likes to make up their own speculation, but even Babylonians don't know the real story. What we _do_ know, is that Jet'akai _did_ succeed because avians that know how to craft Ark of the Cosmos can fly, and the Jewel Sceptre is real. Plus, the magic carpet that was used in his story? It's actually the basis for all Extreme Gear, everywhere."

"Woah! Really?" he asked, completely astonished.

"Yep. Extreme Gear developed from magic carpets. Some substances in the magic carpet were used to forge a metal so strong and light that it became one of the strongest and sought after forms of transport in the world. Do you know what that metal was?"

"Orichalcum."

"Correct. Extreme Gear today pale in comparison to the Extreme Gear of old, because orichalcum was harvested until there was almost none left. So today's gear is only a mix of a small amount of orichalcum and regular alloy metals. And that's pretty much all I can tell you on the creation of Extreme Gear."

"Do you really believe it was a magic carpet?" he asked in wonder.

"I dunno. What do you think?"

"Well, I believe in aliens so maybe I'm not the best person to ask," he joked, and they both started laughing. Her voice was beautiful, like wind chimes creating that delicate tinkling noise. Sitting here, eating ice cream, and speaking to someone on the same wavelength as him… it felt _so_ nice. He felt happier than he had since _she_ was still alive.

* * *

><p><em>Seven Rings In Hand (Fairytales In Trance) <em>by Bentley Jones

* * *

><p><em>"Seven rings in hand, speed through nights with feet in sand.<br>Seven rings in hand, wonders all under command.  
>Seven rings in hand, wild with just one single hand.<br>Seven rings in hand, arrowed hearts catch fire now._

_"Make-believes reborn.  
>Myths in mind re-thought.<br>Question all that's known.  
>Legends blurred and torn."<em>

"What's that song you're singing?" Tails asked, even though he didn't really want to stop Wave from singing. He was amazed when he realised how talented that Wave was.

She flushed, embarrassed, "It's called 'Seven Rings In Hand'. It's a lullaby that my Grandpa used to sing to Jet, Storm and I when we were little."

"How long have you known each other?" Shadow scared the ever living daylights out of the pair by popping out of nowhere. Apparently he had been silently fixing his bike in the nearby corner the entire time. Tails felt a little sheepish.

"Since diapers," she grinned. "They're my brothers."

"Appropriate," Shadow nodded. "You act like siblings."

"Did you have any siblings, Shadow?" Wave asked before Tails elbowed her in the ribs and her eyes opened in understanding.

"Sorry." She was apologising because Shadow couldn't remember anything _about_ his past. Or maybe he could and he just wasn't telling anyone but Rouge. He'd been keeping to himself lately.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Shadow murmured quietly, an unknown emotion flashing through his eyes.

"Did I hear 'Seven Rings In Hand'?" Jet asked, appearing from the staircase.

"Yeah," she nodded. "I was just telling Tails about Prince Jet'akai."

Tails snapped his fingers, "Now that I think about it, your name-"

"Yeah," Jet affirmed, "I was named after Prince Jet'akai."

"He wasn't a peacock though, despite what you may think," Wave teased, receiving a punch in the shoulder on Jet's behalf.

Wave looked down at the Extreme Gear before her, "Okay Jet, all you've got to do now is tell me the password to your gear."

The hawk rolled his eyes in annoyance, scratching at his head feathers, "You forgot it already? It's my dad's name."

"Ah yeah, your middle name; Quill."

There was a loud bang, and the three of them looked back to Shadow, who was frozen. He'd just dropped a wrench on the ground, and dented his toolbox.

"Shadow, are you alright?" Tails questioned. It was another three seconds before Shadow nodded, slowly, as if he was trying to absorb some huge amount of information before he completely abandoned his work and went upstairs.

"Okay, so that wasn't weird at all."

"Ah yes! I finally know what the 'Q' stands for!"

Tails eyes widened, "Caleb!"

He looked a little roughed up but the brown fox had returned with Sonic at his side, looking as cheerful as ever. The annoying jangle of his beaded hemp bracelets should have given him away instantly. Tails needed to ask him where he got so many of them, he wanted one.

"Hi Shorty. How are you doing?"

"How am I- Are you alright? Did you guys-?"

"-Ransack a bank and steal eighty million rings? Yeah, something along those lines. Oh, and we made up to."

"Ho-?"

Caleb grinned, exposing his sharp teeth, "This blue bastard here went behind my back and bought back my sister's rabbit, along with three months worth of feed."

"Well, he wasn't exactly letting me talk to him," Sonic admitted.

"I've made up with Jet too. A punch in the face as compensation, as well as written word promising to not read his emotions for an entire month."

"Wow," Wave said, "Is there anyway that I can get that too?"

"Oral se-"

"Okay! No thank you."

"Here we go with the whore argument again."

"I thought you were gay?" Jet questioned.

"Only if you want me to be," he twittered flirtatiously, running his fingers up and down Jet's sternum and fluffing up his chest feathers. Jet squawked in surprise, pushing Caleb away and making the rest of them laugh.

"You're right!" he declared dramatically, faking devastation, "How could I ever think of capturing your heart when it already belongs to someone else?"

"What?"

"When will you realise, Jettison, that I can make you so much happier than Sonic ever could?"

"Excuse me?" Sonic yelled in alarm.

Wave and Tails were eating up this soap opera like candy, laughing at his dramatic display so hard they were gasping for air.

"I see the way you look at him, and I wait for the day that you can look at me like that too."

"You ripped that off Twilight!"

"But then you left for three years to go to Spagonia, and left be broken and dry, impregnating numerous women on the way there. How could I ever forgive you for leaving me in this dingy city, smoking HGO to make myself feel better?"

Wave and Tails were wheezing now and wiping tears from their eyes.

"And then we have _Sonic_ who, while being a kind and loving husband, is _obviously_ having an affair with Amy. Jet! How are you supposed to support the child you're carrying when Sonic's being unfaithful?"

"Caleb! Stop spouting your shit!" Jet tried to catch the slightly insane fox but he danced right out of reach.

"Oh, but what is this? The real father of the baby is _Storm!_"

"Storm is _not_ the father of my baby. That's gross."

Even Caleb couldn't handle that, he clamped his hands over his mouth and his shoulders started shaking in mirth as he tried to hold back his giggles. Jet looked around him, wondering why Sonic was now laughing as well, "What's so funny?"

Silver climbed down the stairs.

The blue hedgehog answered, "You just acknowledged that you were pregnant and have no idea who the father is."

And then, the white hedgehog slowly started climbing back up. He didn't want to be involved in whatever weird shit his friends were doing right now.

"Oh gods!" Caleb cried, pointing to Tails with horror.

"What?" asked the confused fox, before it finally clicked into place.

"Your emotional aura! It's-!" the yellow fox abruptly tackled him and clamped his hands over his mouth before he could say anything. Caleb nipped on his fingers, making Tails yelp.

"Ouch. Man, for such a little guy, you've got a lot of fight in ya. That really hurt," Wave sniggered, at Caleb's expense. "What did I tell you the first time we met? Dinner and a movie first! Ah-hey!"

Tails stopped threatening Caleb with a spanner when Amy came downstairs, Silver trailing behind her, "What is this about someone having an affair?"

The brown fox gasped, "Silver! You _man-whore!_ I thought that we had something special!"

Tails cracked and started breaking down into hysterics, feeling the happiest he'd been in a _long_ time.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>Resolution and all that crap. I needed to get this uploaded as quickly as possible because I'm not sure if I can get an update up any time soon. I have a question for you guys! I need to know this to help me with my original fiction as well. **What is Caleb's most memorable trait? **Physical wise, whenever I'm writing about him. Is it his _dialogue?_ Is it his_ looks?_ What he _wears?_ I'd really appreciate it if you answered in a review. School's starting tomorrow, wish me luck!


	37. Stupid Cupid EVENT

**domi|note: **Because I missed out on Christmas and New Years. This is a filler, but it's a different kind of filler, and at the same time… it's _not_ a filler. Does that make sense? These pieces of writing might be used later on, and _some_ of them reveal a little of a character's past and what will happen in their future.

The drabbles are written by **Kobie. **Go easy on him, he hasn't written for something since those two chapters of IaTT.

Despite everything, I was actually listening to a piano instrumental version of _Hang Castle_ from **Sonic Heroes**.

Thanks to **Exploder**, **LordCooler**, **insidious fanboy**, **HalfWright**, **Taichi L. Yagami**, **superechidna**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**,**Metalshadow1909**, **SmallSpek**, **Undead009**, **Stonefaced610**, **DaddlerTheDalek** and **Grunt9073** for reviewing the first chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. ~T. S. Eliot<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Seven  
>.<em>  
>"'Cause you're all I have, when the world comes down on me. You're the one I love; and I'm begging you to see."<br>…_  
>Tell me that you love me <em>by Victoria Justice and Leon Thomas III

* * *

><p><strong>i. 'Dual Pistols' – Leilani Cesario<strong>

_I can't believe I couldn't see it before,  
>if the way you moved,<br>and the form with which you fight, take flight,  
>looked like dancing, looked effortless,<br>then why couldn't you come back to me?_

_If natural grace came so easily,  
>and hardships were slid aside,<br>if affections were trifles,  
>and knowledge temporary satisfaction,<br>then why did you give in so easily?_

_It probably wasn't your fault,  
>that you fell from grace,<br>if no one else survived it as well.  
>But if you were the first,<br>then why did you allow it?_

_I can't help thinking,  
>with naïve hope<br>that maybe you once loved me,  
>the way that I<br>hopelessly devoted myself to you_

_Even if you were a monster  
>and no one else had seen it<br>but the people who'd memorised your smile.  
>Or your laugh.<br>Or the funny way you'd click your fingers when you forgot something._

_Or your strange sleeping habits.  
>Or the way you'd eat your food<br>(in order of deliciousness)  
>Or the way you fought<br>Or the way you talked_

_And suddenly your purity was ripped away  
>With some undeniable force<br>By something we couldn't comprehend  
>Something ugly. Something cruel. Something deceitful.<br>like feathers dipped in turpentine_

_That scarlet took away your hair  
>the black took away your will<br>that grey took away your eyes  
>my bullets took away your life<br>and when they took you, they swept me away as well_

_But I came back, why couldn't you?_

_I stand here  
>with dual pistols poised,<br>in my hands  
>one at your head,<br>and one at mine_

"_Tell me not to pull the trigger."_

_Because I fell in love  
>with a monster<br>who'd sooner slit my neck  
>than learn to love me<br>like I did_

_So what is this sick macabre?_

_I'm no longer pure  
>But I can't wait for you<br>to give me back  
>my innocence<br>once again._

_Even if I want my Skye back more than anything._

* * *

><p><strong>ii. 'I hate this feeling, so much' – Miles 'Tails' Prower<strong>

_I've always adored you from afar  
>There couldn't have been another girl with such grace<br>More volatile than rising stars  
>Could I keep up with your pace?<em>

_But, alas, you couldn't see me that way  
>What with a mediocre fourteen years<br>How did you change me, make me sway?  
>You save me from my drowning fears<em>

_Now I find myself in shambles  
>Jolting. Shuddering. Thinking less.<br>Leaving my work dusty, trampled  
>An incoherent, blushing mess<em>

_If I know that you would sink that low,  
>Was it your plan, to change me so?<em>

* * *

><p><strong>iii. 'Unbeatable'– Jet Q. Hawkington<strong>

_She's irresistible,  
>With her voluptuous curves<br>And her incredible control._

_She's the epitome of brilliance,  
>Moving at a pace,<br>so I almost can't catch up._

_She's so durable,  
>ready to deal with anything<br>I put her through._

_I can't love anyone more than I love you; Extreme Gear Type-J._

* * *

><p><strong>iv. 'Cliché, but whatever' – Knuckles<strong>

_Roses are red,  
>Violets are blue<br>But none are as pretty  
>As Julie-Su<em>

_Don't tell her I said that  
>I know it's no sin<br>But if you show her this stupid poem  
>I'll smash your face in.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>v. 'He' - Cream<strong>

_**T**__houghtful_

_**A**__ffectionate_

_**I**__nventive_

_**L**__oyal_

_**S**__elfless_

* * *

><p><strong>vi.'What the hell is Diamante anyway?' -Wave<strong>

_Child.  
>Fluffy. Adorable.<br>Laughing. Smiling. Charming.  
>Young. Curious. Endearing. Creative.<br>Maturing. Adapting. Exciting.  
>Unpredictable. Inspiring.<br>Tails._

* * *

><p><strong>vii. 'Resignation' – Amy Rose<strong>

Flashing. Dashing. Shifting soundwaves.  
>Break the sound barrier.<br>Go run.  
>Why ask of me? You know I'll cave.<br>I'm just the carrier.  
>Have fun.<p>

Leaving me to be a hero.  
>Can I really get it?<br>Will I?  
>Making me feel like a zero.<br>So maybe I should quit.  
>I'll try.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>viii. 'Hero' – Caleb Heartnet<strong>

Guitar/Piano chord progression;

Intro- D, A, Bm, A, G, A  
>Verse- D, A, Bm, G<br>Pre chorus- G, Bm, G, A  
>Chorus- D, A, Bm, A, G<br>Bridge- Bm, G, A  
>Outro- A, Bm, A, G, A, D<p>

_They say it's charming.  
>Best friends. Sweethearts. Breakups. Teenaged lovers.<br>And well, I doubt it;  
>Hiss and fight and hurt and crying in the corner.<em>

_Like, are you stupid?  
>God knows we can go without another crappy serenade.<br>No need for  
>Flowers. Chocolates. Bells and kinky cherry-flavoured paint coz<em>

_Wonder why  
>they always say that<br>I will fall for you._

_You've got to be a lunatic. Some crazy chick and  
>Screeching out my non-existent sex-life doesn't make you cool<br>There's got to be a point in time when you'll get my gender right  
>And you promise to break at least fifteen of the twenty-five school rules.<em>

_Best friends are there to tell you when your bum looks fat and  
>to let you cheat off tests, unless they thought the same of you<br>To bust you out of trouble just to swerve and turn you back  
>And punch the guy that keyed your car until he's black and blue<em>

_You're there through thick and thin  
>Making sure that I stand tall<br>And I'm no prince, but I'll be there  
>To catch you when you fall<em>

_Romance? Really?Pfft.  
>There are better things to waste your time on<br>You beg to differ?  
>Well have fun with your sparkly love-sick veggie-vampire twat<em>

_We're better of as friends  
>Then there's no awkwardness and weirded-out confessions<br>Andand- but then again  
>I know that anyone I meet would pale in comparison to you<em>

_Wonder why  
>they always said that<br>I would fall for you_

_You've got to be some sadist, coz you adore my pain and  
>Yeah, you don't freak me out, even if you're forcing me to drag away a corpse<br>And, there are no hard feelings even when I fall and you're the first one to laugh  
>I'll get you back at breakfast by stabbing you with sporks<em>

_Best friends are there to steal umbrellas and yell 'Run, bitch, run!'  
>They're there to trip you over rocks, so you can push them down as well<br>They're there to keep you entertained through history, chemistry and math  
>To make sure your secret's safe, and that they'll never tell<em>

_You're there through thick and thin  
>Making sure that I stand tall<br>And I'm no prince, but I'll be there  
>To catch you when you fall<em>

_There are no words to describe  
>How you went and changed my whole life<br>I take it out on my tears  
>And scream 'I wish you were here'<br>I miss you saying my name  
>Whisper 'I love you' again<em>

_Where are you now that I'm falling? Falling. Falling._

_They wonder why  
>I never told them<br>That I fell for you_

_You've got to be some hero, I'd know, because you have saved me  
>And when we fought, I was reluctant to admit that you had left<br>You made my cry and laugh and fight and live life to the full  
>And you know you're smile reminds me; I'm glad that we had met<em>

_Best friends are there to make sure, that you are okay  
>They're there to force the mobs to fuck off when they force you to the dirt<br>They're there to make a devastating loss seem small, and hardly worth your time  
>And there, to share your pain when you are feeling hurt<em>

_You're there through thick and thin  
>Making sure that I stand tall<br>And I'm no prince, but I'll be there  
>To catch you when you fall<em>

_You were there, through thick and thin  
>You braved my greatest hell<br>I was no prince, I couldn't  
>Catch you when you fell<em>

* * *

><p><strong>ix. 'Black Wings' - Rouge<strong>

_Truth  
>Your pain<br>Honesty  
>Affect me so<br>Majesty  
>Shadow<br>King._

* * *

><p><strong>x. 'Breakfast' - Storm<strong>

_There once was a foodstuff called bacon  
>Of which I was terribly shaken<br>When I found to my shock  
>That we'd run out of stock<br>Which I later discovered, was taken_

* * *

><p><strong>xi. 'Request' - Silver<strong>

_Amber, fire-like eyes.  
>Beauty in the form of strength.<br>I love you. Be mine._

* * *

><p><strong>xii. 'Thine, o mine' - Blaze<strong>

_Sheer doubt, plain optimism, canst and will not have effect of thee  
>Thy guiding light burns brighter, than the acrid flames cast by my hands<br>So why dost though love a terror? A foolish maiden that strikes her friends,  
>That pummels with no earlier sign of vindication, or earlier consent<em>

_See it true, see it foolhardy, but mine own name is sweetened on thy tongue  
>Thou cannot conceal the way cheeks redden in my presence,<br>Or jewels of golden mirth, shine as does the Solean sun.  
>Silver, Silver, oh sweet, gentle Silver.<em>

_Be it in mine dreams, or under a starry cloak of darkening night,  
>A hapless, naïve prince. Of fate? Of fortune? Of poor origin but noble upbringings,<br>A knight in thine eyes, brave, stupid. Forgiving as am I, or should you be?  
>Forgive, but no. Love? Not, I'd think.<em>

_But I know thou, Silver, my sweet, gentle Silver.  
>And one canst wait for the lyre bird to sing<br>when one such songbird is mute.  
>As one cannot wait, for a maiden that clutches her heartbeats to her breast.<em>

_Sheathe thy sword, I'd have you not though. One borders on the edge of indecision.  
>Because every night, I would save your life.<br>Every night, I would be with you.  
>Because every night, I still lay awake and I dream, of an absolution.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>xiii. 'Sorry' - Shadow<strong>

_You were there before the fallen.  
>Next I was stolen.<br>Defying space.  
>A fall from grace.<em>

_Friendship with nothing in return.  
>Of no concern.<br>You gave me back.  
>The trust I lacked.<em>

_I cannot have anything left.  
>Black Arms were deft.<br>You're true, but I-  
>I can't love you.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>xiv. 'Embers' – Fina Auto<strong>

_Engagement ring, four from the right  
>He had kind eyes, and a beating heart<br>One such as him, was not meant to die  
>But there he was<br>Engulfed in flames  
>And so she cried<em>

_The ache in her heart is still there today  
>After years of pain<br>Within safe haven.  
>And so she fights<br>But still so fragile,  
>Longing for her dear, sweet D-<em>

_And so he slipped through her fingers  
>Like ash to embers<br>Falling through the sky  
>To become the fire<br>Reflected  
>In her eyes<em>

* * *

><p><strong>xv. 'Flower' – Miles 'Tails' Prower<strong>

_She had eyes of blue.  
>Smelt of morning due.<br>Her heart was stolen, I was not true.  
>And thus could never say 'I love you'.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>xvi. 'Not all of it is mirrors' – Welshscot<strong>

_It's a curious thing, this hate and love  
>It never flies straight, like a crow or a dove.<em>

_Some say that they - like night and day  
>Are clear to see, but I say nay;<em>

_For no matter if they're friends or rivals  
>They both still know all, even small trifles;<em>

_And while nature states that differences clash,  
>Like when fire meets timber, thus leaving ash.<em>

_I find that, from this ash, a Phoenix can be born,  
>Bringing either a harsh caress or a mournful scorn.<em>

_So there's a fine line between these two feelings  
>And it's to each their own, to divulge its true meanings<em>

* * *

><p><strong>xvii. 'Can you take my partner?' -Kelp<strong>

_Please, will you take my partner off my hands?  
>I'm not trying to force you or make any demands,<em>

_But I'd like you to consider this offer I bring,  
>But I warn you now, she really cannot sing.<em>

_Her name is Lacy Poole, a bird of pink feathers,  
>Who despite her looks, favours heavy leathers;<em>

_Like MCR, Slipknot and Three days Grace,  
>Which, I admit, I rush from with haste.<em>

_But my want of freedom, to have some peaceful hours,  
>Is all because of her astonishing powers.<em>

_The fourth wall means little to her, she breaks it like glass,  
>Travel to her is folly, since she's always on time for Mass.<em>

_But one can get sick of his quarters,  
>Being used to ferry another's daughters,<em>

_Which, I assure you, happens every day,  
>When it's time for heads to lay.<em>

_I have tried to talk to her, beg her to change her whim,  
>But then I remember that she's so slightly dim.<em>

_So she clings to me and grins,  
>And manages to break my violins.<em>

_So I'll ask you once more...  
>...Damn, he didn't even close the door.<em>

_So I'm stuck with you, you're here to stay.  
>Well at least I won't be alone, on Valentine's Day.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>i. Cesario-<strong> Free verse. Lots of clues in that one.  
><strong>ii. Tails- <strong>Sonnet. Nonsyllabic format, cbf, ferserious.  
><strong>iii. Jet-<strong> Free verse. Written by Deo.  
><strong>iv. Knuckles-<strong> Parody. Written by Deo.  
><strong>v. Cream- <strong>Acrostic poem. Gods, I miss when they were considered actual literature.  
><strong>vi. Wave-<strong>Diamante. I would have done a shape poem, but FF is stupid.  
><strong>vii. Amy-<strong>Memento. Hers was written while listening to 'Follow me'. NOSTALGIA!  
><strong>viii. Caleb- <strong>Song. Lyrics by me, chord composition by Kobie. Damn bar chords. I hate you. So much. My fingers hurt.  
><strong>ix. Rouge- <strong>Lanturne. All hail Shadow!  
><strong>x. Storm- <strong>Limerick. Written by Deo.  
><strong>xi. Silver- <strong>Haiku.**  
>xii. Blaze-<strong>Shakespearian Blank verse. This one's my favourite. The last three lines of the poem belong to Lee Brotherton.**  
>xiii. Shadow- <strong>Minute. Yes, he is a sad little emocuddlepuff writing sad little emocuddlepuff poems in a dark corner. C'mon everyone! We must glomp him!  
><strong>xiv. Fina- <strong>Free verse. Trollolololll!  
><strong>xv. Tails- <strong>Epitaph.  
><strong>xvi. Welshscot- <strong>Rhyme. Written by Welshscot.  
><strong>xvii. Kelp- <strong>Rhyme. Written by Welshscot. Poor guy.

* * *

><p>By <strong>Kobie.<strong>

_Not_ in chronological order.

**warning:- **a little raunchy. a little rude. you know the drill. if it ain't your thing, leave.

* * *

><p><em>Powder Blue <em>by Elbow

* * *

><p>Limbs of cement hit the bed with an unceremonious thump. His chest heaving, his breath coming in momentary puffs of heated air. The blankets before them, seemingly silken when they'd originally began their erotic endeavours, now were scratchy and damp, coarse against the tousled fur of his black-furred hand. Breathing in through his mouth, out through his nose, his hands clenched in the fabric of the bed linen, brushing against the knuckles of her smooth bronze skin. Euphoria was coursing through his body and sending pleasurable waves across his skin, heating him from the inside out.<p>

"Well, guess they have a reason to call it 'The Whore Floor' again," her voice was dark velvet, reverberating through the air like the fine notes of a baby grand. She, herself, was the personification of the 1950's seductress. She was a walking vision in gossamer curves, heavy mascara, and witty, flirtatious talk laden with dirty metaphors and double meanings. Any man without Shadow's degree of incredible self control would have fallen victim to her vindictive charms long ago… He put up a good fight before throwing in the towel.

"You're not a whore," he whispered, rolling on his side and nudging his nose into her neck. Her breasts pressed up against his arms as she turned on her side as well, aquamarine locking with ruby as she placed her hand on his chest and started running her dexterous fingers through the sweaty white fur. He felt calmer when he was around her; she was one of the only friends he had that didn't _demand_ conversation of him. He supposed he could account it to the fact that she'd known him longer, but Rouge could read his emotions better than he could.

"It's so nice to hear that again."

"Rouge…"

She fluttered her eyes before making an affirmative noise into his neck, the vibration thrumming through his skin like the steady hum of a shaking heartstring.

"You know you're not anything like her… right?"

"Shadow…" her breathy chuckle left a warm patch on his neck, the slow, creeping warmth making the corner of his lips turn up in a tentative smile. "I know I don't have to share you with a memory. You're here. With me. Now."

Her confidence always astounded him, leaving him speechless. So he merely nudged his nose forward, brushing honey skin, and pressed his lips against hers.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

* * *

><p><em>One Tiny Thing <em>by 8in8

* * *

><p>"I don't understand you, Caleb." Leilani was a hindrance. A thorn in his side. A rock in his shoe. Whether it be the fact that she<em>demanded<em> to be there, or whether it was because she was so _condescending_in the way he behaved in front of Arly's grave, it didn't matter because he still didn't want her there. At the same time, he was glad that she'd come with him today, because Rouge couldn't and it wasn't like he could ask Ash or Lottie or even Silver or Tails to come, asking Welshscot would have just been weird, and he was probably spending Valentines with Hjalmar considering that weird vibe he got from the scientist whenever he was around (though it _was_ difficult only reading half of the relationship, though he didn't really _enjoy_ reading his emotions. If he wasn't one of those people that 'radiated' his emotions it would have been fine), despite how much he'd come to like them in their brief time together. And he _did_ like Silver; he just had an odd way of showing it. He was just so _fun _to rile up.

He knew that he needed her there, because Leilani was his best friend now and she was the only one he'd willingly open up for, because she already knew about his dark, cobwebbed secrets, because Leilani understood his pain, endured torture for a fruitless love. Had her heart ripped out and shredded, clawed and smashed. Then they'd spat on it, painted it black and thrown it back into her broken rib cage, electrocuting her until it beat again. He could see it in the way her brown eyes dimmed into a shade that was almost like rust, dirt and blood, that's how he remembered the colour. He didn't _like_ reading Leilani's emotions, because underlying all that fake happiness, all the repressed fury and rage there was always sadness. Sadness. Fear. Hurt. Pain. Crippling anxiety. A foreboding sense of helplessness and hopelessness he couldn't change if he tried.

So even though she was berating him for spitting on Arly's grave, kicking her gravestone, crying silent tears and taking it all back, murmuring 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again, he was grateful she was there. So she could pat his back, dry his tears and whisper 'It's gonna be alright' even if they both knew she was lying. And so when she stopped at Skye's grave, and yelled a whole barrage of churlish profanities at the cold stone lying beneath them before breaking into sobs, he could do to same and lie so sweetly it almost took the pain away.

"But I know you better than you know yourself."

When all was said and done they set the water lilies by Arly's grave, the roses on Skye's, and walked away silently to forget the ghosts behind them for another year.

* * *

><p><em>The Left Side of Everywhere<em> by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>"I love you."<p>

"I love you too, Silver." Her smile was sweet. Calm. Cautious. Guarded. It wasn't an I'm-_in_-love-with-you smile. It's the heartbreakingly hesitant I-love-you-too-in-a-_friend_-way smile. He could see it in her posture, in the way the vibrant light in her eyes dimmed. Blaze was intelligent, but a little emotionally detached, and maybe that's why she didn't respond to him now.

And _that's_ why Silver felt like his heart was breaking. He'd heard about it before, he'd never experienced it of course. The only person he could go to about heartbreak would probably be Caleb, and that was because he could probably experience it through other people. What he _did_ feel was borderline hysteria. There was a lump in his throat, and the back of his eyes felt scratchy. His limbs were made of lead and his face felt like plastic as he stared at her, waiting for the meaning to sink in. There was some kind of unbearable heat in the back of his neck as his ears pressed flat against his head.

"I love you."

What was he? A broken record. But somewhere in his head, the possibility of repeating the statement until it sunk in was a prominent course of action. Instead he watched as Blaze's eyebrows furrowed, and her lips turned down in a frown.

"I get it, Silver."

Her voice carried a note of harshness she might not have realised broke him so, tearing him down and sending cold shivers down his arms. He turned around, muttering.

"No, you don't."

He'd made it five steps away before there was an agitated scream from behind him, and he turned around and watched as Blaze put up her hands to shield her face, _"I do!"_

"Blaze…" Tap. Tap. His steps were cautious as they advanced towards his friend, a hand outstretched.

"Don't _you_ get it? _I DO!_" her voice reached a pitch so high he thought her vocal chords might have snapped. He rushed over to her, trying to hush her and understand the problem, "I'm not _naïve_ like you! I'm a little distant, but I'm not totally oblivious. I've known. I've known for the longest time."

Silver didn't even feel embarrassed over the confession; instead he felt an unreasonable amount of rage. He felt betrayed. His breath came out staggered and shaking, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because… because…"

"Did you _enjoy_ watching me suffer or something?" he knew it was stupid, but he felt so many conflicting emotions at once: sadness, hurt, rage. And she was just standing there, looking guilty. "Fine! I'm naïve! I'm not the brightest light bulb in the basement, but I'm not _stupid!_ Why didn't you tell me you didn't feel the same way? Why did you make me look like a fool?"

"Silver…"

_Make it stop hurting._

"Why would you do this to me?"

"There's someone else."

_Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump._

And just like that, he turned away as Blaze's knees gave out on her and she sunk to the floor, weeping for a friendship lost.

_I hate lying to you, but you'll never learn if I was kind._

She couldn't give her heart away, not even for the one it beat for.

* * *

><p><em>Basic space <em>by The XX

* * *

><p>His head snapped up as her back thrashed against the wall, he sucked his chest in, pulling his goggles down so they slung loosely from his neck. There was near silence. Heavy breathing. He was still arching. Her cleavage was pressing against his collar bones but she didn't seem to notice. This was the most <em>awkward<em> situation he'd ever been in.

There were sirens wailing through the streets like some unholy justice has just been committed, and if Wave had something to do with it, it probably had. Her chest was heaving, up and down, and Tails couldn't help but be remembered of all those dirty metaphors his friends were so fond of. He was short of breath and his cheeks burned. Oh what fresh hell is this?

A swarm of Egg Drones buzzed past, scanners bright, blinking and blaring through the darkness of the Solean night. When they were at a safe distance, Wave exhaled and looked at Tails, looking back at the street before her head jerked. Her blue eyes locked with his and she looked ethereal, the black shadows cast around her form highlighting her black-clad body and the slim curve of her eyelashes, her icy eyes the only facial feature he could see with clarity.

"Shit, Kitty. What are you _doing_ here?" A hiss. He hadn't _asked_ to be here. He hadn't prayed to the deities that he'd be smushed in a small alleyway with- with- _boobies_ shoved in his face! Damn puberty. Damn hormones. And _damn _all his dirty-minded friends.

"I was doing HGO-" he growled sarcastically. "What do you _think_ I was doing? Riding!"

"That is _really_ bad timing…" she said, turning her eyes back to the street. It was buzzing with illegal panic, the air thrumming with pulsing energy.

"Oh really? Days before the next race, _go figure._"

Her eyes were laughing. There was a slim little highlight in black fabric around her face; a small crescent moon indicated that she was smiling that stupid smile. The one she reserved for him because he'd somehow done something amusing and endearing at the same time. He could tell because he'd memorised the way the bottom of her eyes arched, and how her eyes warmed until ice had become water, "When did you become so sarcastic?"

He scowled, "I was here first. Now get your… assets out of my face!"

"Sorry kid," she laughed quietly, sliding her back down the wall so one of her bent legs nudged a sneaker between both of his, it looked a little uncomfortable, but at least she was eye-level with him now, "I thought you were shorter than that, and they're so small anyway-"

"They're bigger than you think they are," Tails said nonchalantly. Realising what he'd just said, he hissed by sucking in air through clenched teeth, flushing and rambling, "I mean it's not like I've been look- Not that you're not sexy… but it's not like… Dear Lord, shut my mouth."

She tilted her head to the side, eyes alight with curiosity and delight before she reached forward and pinched his cheek playfully, "Such a cute little virgin."

"Knock it off," he swatted her hand away, hoping she hadn't noticed the heat radiating off his cheeks.

"But I'm serious; you've grown _so_ much since I met you."

Why was it, that coming from her, that meant so much more than it would have, coming from anyone else?

"You really think so?"

"Yeah," she snorted. "A year or so and I won't be able to call you 'Shorty' anymore."

It was just a jest, but it hurt more than it should have. He clenched his fists, and forced on a smile. He rolled his eyes sarcastically,_"Thanks."_

_Will she ever see me as more than a kid?_

_..._

_Why would that even matter to me?_

Her smile.

_It's not like I..._

Her laugh.

_... __**like**__ her or anything._

"You're welcome! Now sprint, _now!_" her hand gripped Tails', sending an shot of electricity through his spine, that he would _so_ deny is anyone asked him about why he shivered.

_God dammit._

"Follow me!"

And he would because-

_I have a crush on Wave._

* * *

><p><em>domi;<em> _Smile _by Avril Lavigne

* * *

><p>Tails, Marine and Caleb were sitting down on the sofa watching the news to see if any more information about the upcoming race was airing. There was also the fact that there was pro-mutant programming on now, so they didn't have to skip absolutely every damned channel they passed through.<p>

Tails was clicking through the remote lazily, Marine was trying to figure out who'd sent her an anonymous Valentine, and Caleb was sketching. Silver came to join them a minute later, as well as Rouge who'd just come out of Shadow's room; the black hedgehog was nowhere to be found though.

"How come you're not with anyone today?" Tails asked Caleb, because he seemed to be the only one that was completely alone.

The brown fox scoffed, and Rouge knitted her eyebrows together in disapproval, "I have intimacy issues. Love is stupid. I don't believe in it."

Marine looked alarmed, turning her attention to her apparent crush, looking down at her mysterious Valentine and then at his picture, her eyes drooping. Tails grimaced and Silver growled.

"How can you not believe in love?" Tails asked with disbelief, "You're an _empath._"

"Love is a delusion that people name an intense combination of lust, longing and affection. Commonly there's a load of anger thrown in there too. It isn't actually an emotion. I seriously _hate_ Valentine's Day. There are so many guys buying chocolate hopin' to get laid, chicks too."

"That is _so_ bitter and pessimistic," Silver murmured, eyes going dim. "What happened to you to make you believe that?"

"Does it 'ave anythin' to do with this 'Arly' sheila that 'every one's talkin' 'bout?" Marine questioned.

"What do you mean, 'Arly'? Isn't that a girl's name? I thought you were gay," Silver questioned, mouth turning down in a frown.

"I am. And why is everyone so obsessed with my private life? I hate Valentines because there are so many horny people running around. And if they aren't horny, they're sad and miserable, plus there are all those people that _act_ like they hate Valentine's Day, but that's just because they can't get a date themselves," the brown fox growled, closing his sketchbook, along with the image of the pretty girl inside it.

"Huh… well then what does that say about you?" Tails teased.

"I could charm anyone's socks off. Besides, there are just people that _genuinely_ hate Valentines because the way everyone acts sickens them."

"I beg to differ, I think you were just turned down."

"'Oh no, he _really _could charm them," Rouge interjected, sitting on Caleb's arm rest. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Shut up, Rouge," the empath ground out through clenched teeth.

"And you're bisexual, you little brat," she smiled innocently, ruffling Caleb's hair. Tails still couldn't get over how sibling-like they were. It was almost cute, in a really demented way.

"How would you know?" he asked indignantly, cheeks flushing as he swivelled in the chair to regard his senior, Marine, Tails and Silver listening intently.

"Because you're painfully obvious with your sexual endeavours, Sweetie."

"I am _not!_"

"Yes, you _are, _Honey. There was Daniel, Barby, Nathan, Rafael, Dimitri-" she checked off the 'romantic endeavours' like they were grocery items.

"His name was Dominic…" Caleb mumbled, curling in on himself and weaving his hands through his hair.

"Jesse, Conor, Tyler, Asher, Freddie-"

"Freddie doesn't count."

"Evie, Chrissy-" she continued, unfazed.

"Rouge, _shut up!_"

Meanwhile, the rest of them were having a ball. They'd never seen the sarcastic empath _this _embarrassed before. He was hiding his face in his knees.

"Man, did you get around," Tails grinned.

"It wasn't my fault!" he whined, trying to push Rouge away.

"Reese, Yannick, Addie-"

"They get the point!" he yelled, revealing his very red face now, sticking out his bottom lip in annoyance.

Marine looked horrified.

Rouge continued anyway, smirking evilly, "And you wouldn't even have _realised_ you were spiked with aloe unless you either woke up naked in someone else's bed, or with an aching backside-"

"_ROUGE!"_

The four characters burst into laughter at Caleb's expense as he hid his face in absolute mortification. Who'd have thought?

"I can't believe you're an 'uke'," Marine said, her face flushing as well.

Silver snorted, and Caleb used his hand to push him off the couch, "At least I get some, you sex-deprived bitch." He groaned, "Rouge, you're so embarrassing."

"Aww, but it's what big sister's are for," she cooed, pinching Caleb's cheek and giving him a kiss.

"Get _off_ me!"

At that moment, Amy and Cream, followed by a reluctant Sonic, appeared in the lounge room and Tails made a pathetic attempt to hide behind Marine. Cream was holding a heart-shaped box.

"Hi guys! Happy Valentine's Day! I made candies for everyone," she offered them to Tails, but everyone reached forward to take one.

"Wow, Cream," Sonic said.

"These are good," Rouge smiled.

"Ripper," Marine agreed.

Caleb almost choked and spit his piece of candy onto the ground. Everyone stared at him in horror, Cream with absolute fury before he lunged at Tails and attempted to squeeze his neck. Tails was so surprised he _swallowed _it.

The brown fox groaned, "Are you an _idiot?_ These are _éclairs!_"

Tails gasped in horror as all of his friends bolted instantly, Caleb and Silver barricaded themselves in their room, Amy armed herself with a kitchen knife while Sonic screamed 'HIDE THE TOASTER! HIDE THE TOASTER!'

* * *

><p>For the remaining three hours of chaos, Silver and Caleb played cards on the floor of their room before they tried to open the door. That didn't work because something was barricading the door, so they swung outside of their window and onto the fifth floor before making their way downstairs. All was silent, so Silver asked, "So, what <em>does<em> happen when a dog eats chocolate?"

"We go into a hyped up frenzy, often become dangerous… whatev- The toaster's missing."

"So is the fridge."

So apparently the fridge was in front of their door, filled to the brim with chocolate pudding. How it got there, they would _never _know. They proposed getting drinks to celebrate Valentines alone, completely ignoring the fact that Shadow was rocking back and forth in the foetal position under the kitchen table in front of a pair of sneakers that had been filled with noodles, Rouge was nailed by her clothes to Sonic's door, said blue hedgehog was dazed and glued to the ceiling, and Tails was hanging from the jungle gym (by his tails) like a bat out of Hell, giggling and connecting the tips of his fingers together in Mr. Burns' famous 'excellent' pose.

"Where's Amy?"

They found the unfortunate hedgehog on the couch, covered in the remnants of what looked like a strawberry milkshake. They found Cream hiding in the closet, absolutely hysterical. She latched onto Caleb's leg muttering 'I'm sorry' over and over again.

She almost made their ears bleed when she spotted Tails, a threatening looking toilet plunger in his hand.

"I'm a banana, bitches!"

"… Excuse me?"

"SILENCE! IGNORANT BOOBS."

Caleb clutched his head, "Oh my fuck, I told myself I wasn't going to do HGO anymore. But apparently myself doesn't want to listen to whatever I have to say. If I could kick myself in the balls, I would."

"You haven't done any HGO… not that I know of anyway," Silver noted, carefully manoeuvring himself so that he was opposite Tails, and there was a couch between them.

"To whatever deity is listening; I promise never to swear, drink, gamble or copulate ever again if you just get us out of here alive," Caleb prayed.

"Stop lying."

"Shhhh! They don't know that."

"If you don't adhere to me right this clock, I am going seven fingers, and nit-pick spaghetti until the fireworks!"

"What. The. _Fuck?_"

"I don't think swearing at him is going to make it any better," said the silver hedgehog as they slowly started inching towards the exit. "Can't you use a little empathy on him?"

"I've been in that state before; I don't want to feel _anything_ like that ever again."

Silver had a bright idea, "Try communicating with him!"

"Oh wow. You've been doing HGO too, haven't you?"

"I'm serious."

Caleb rolled his eyes and started to make obscene hand gestures, "Um, okay… Listen up, Prower. There are no debaucheries hiding in the fucked-up kaleidoscope. No unicorns and singing flower leprechauns. Chocolate's not eating meatballs with a known paedophile. Silver's a bunny rabbit and cats are seventy-eight percent recyclable. No frilly pink underwear here, _plus_ there's no condoms in eating pic'n'mix, che?"

"Do you have _any_ idea what you just said?" Silver asked, in total bewilderment.

He shrugged, shaking his head, "No."

"What did you say about my mother?" Tails snarled.

Silver rolled his eyes, "See? It didn't even make any sense and you _still_ manage to screw things up."

"At least I won't die a _virgin, _White One."

"You bastar-!"

They'd almost made it out the door when something quick and yellow came rushing out behind them, effectively knocking them out.

"PRAISE THE ULTIMATE PHONE CHARGER!"

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>I have an announcement! There will now be polls in the chapters, because I get bored. Vote with your preference and we will write off snippits of information I know you're dying to know (not really, but I'm trying to make this more fun). We're on a standstill at the moment. But I _promise_ no more fillers from here on out, not until I get stuck on the next huge segment of the story.

Five votes towards one particular choice and it will be answered in the next chapter in the form of a short drabble written by Kobie;

1. Blaze and Silver's first meeting. (Friendship)

2. Caleb's ultimate irrational fear. (Humour)

3. Rouge and Shadow reflecting on his returning memories. (Hurt/Comfort)

Just tell me which one you'd like to see in the next instalment of AoODD. Happy Valentine's Day!


	38. Don't Slip Away

**domi|note: **Ever so sorry for the major delay. There were some technical difficulties behind the scenes, but the story is _finally_ progressing!

I found some amazing inspiration for _Anthem of Our Dying Day. _If you guys haven't watched 'The Help' yet, you should. It's _sensational. _

Thanks to **LordCooler**, **insidious fanboy**, **CraigTucker1252**, **Stonefaced610**, **Exploder**, **Grunt 9073**, **superechidna**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **Fanfic412**, **HalfWright**, **Kobie**, **Undead009**, **della-dolll**, **DaddlerTheDalek** and **Subzero Inferno** for reviewing the last chapters.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>A promise is a cloud; fulfilment is rain. ~Arabian Proverb<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Thirty Eight  
>.<em>  
>"Now I will show you, all that I'm made of. This is my life (this is my life!) I've got the whole world in front of me. I'm not letting go 'til I say. This is my life. Don't slip away. Don't slip away."<br>…_  
>Mercenary<em> by Panic! At The Disco

* * *

><p>"Follow me."<p>

Hearts beating. Faster. Faster. This time, Tails had anticipated the attack to his shoulder, his honed reflexes managing to capture Shadow's wrist and twist it to haul it away from him, using his leg to kick Shadow in the solar plexus to nullify any other attacks he could use his legs for. The black hedgehog smirked, and the warning bells in Tails' head started to go off. Faster. _Faster._ Kick. Punch. Dodge. Kick. Punch. Dodge. Kick. Dodge. Feint!

His feet felt light as they danced out of Shadow's swiping range, using the weight of his tails to slam into his chest, the satisfying clap breaking the otherwise silent rooftop. Shadow looked at him for a second, surprise flickered through his crimson eyes for brief moment before the smirk widened.

"That's new." He didn't have much time to revel in the hidden compliment, because Shadow was surging forward at superhuman speed once again, fist curled and aiming for his gut. Tails _just_ managed to dodge the attack, and the three afterwards before he retaliated by striking the hedgehog's thigh, using the momentary hesitation to grab his arm and twist it back, blocking his other arm with his spare hand, shaking from the strain.

He was too late to react to Shadow's knee being lodged in his stomach; his arms were secured behind his back with one of the black hedgehog's hands and Shadow's sneaker was steadily pressing into his ankle, applying steady pressure knowing that soon enough, the bone would snap. _Faster. Faster. _Tails knew that he wouldn't be able to fly out of this situation; he had to make sure he didn't die. The pain was starting to become unbearable, so he did the only thing he knew would make him let go.

Although there were bandages on his tails, he knew that he could still rotate them, spinning them until they were like helicopter blades, making small cuts in Shadow's arms, surprising him so much that that he let go, and Tails was able to turn around and launch himself forward, tackling the older hedgehog down. Sitting on his stomach with Tails' hand fastened at his throat, his fist curled and ready to launch, he thought he was ready to admit defeat, but apparently not. When he saw Shadow's smile, the bells in his head started ringing louder.

_Faster! Faster! _Shadow raised his free hand, and in it the most curious form of green light had started to develop. Tails _just_ managed to hop off Shadow and bound back before a jagged bolt of green lightning hit the ground where Tails' feet had once been. Tails squawked, looking at the residue of the green smoke and cinders that had appeared from the ground when an insanely fast blur of black struck his head from above, sending Tails into the ground.

"Resist your nerdy little scientific urges when in the midst of battle, Tails. Not unless you're examining how to take the enemy down."

"What the Hell was that?" Tails growled, trying to push himself up, knowing Shadow wasn't going to remove his foot from his back, straining the muscle in his arms. He wanted so desperately to know what Shadow had just done with the green lightning bolt.

"Act now. Questions later." Shadow increased the amount of pressure being applied to Tails' back, unrelenting. The kit performed a quick barrel roll away from Shadow, knocking the hedgehog off balance. He took this as his chance to strike, steeling his nerves, breathing deep. He brought back his arm and let it rocket into Shadow's face, the slam signifying he'd actually managed to land a hit. He paused a second to watch Shadow stagger back. He actually started to panic when Shadow bit his lip, a mild look of discomfort in his expression before he turned his head to the side and spit out blood.

"Oh god, I'm _so_ sorry Shadow!" Tails panicked, rushing forward to help when Shadow reeled back. Tails had merely blinked, but suddenly his entire body was being flung back, crashing into the outside of the Black Arms so hard he felt like he'd been hit with a wrecking ball.

"Get up and try again. Do not show sympathy towards your enemies, they will take advantage of your kindness."

The fox dropped to the floor, his body now bruised and aching, but he nodded, ignoring the pain and letting it phase through him. There would be time to heal later, but he had to make sure he was absorbing all of Shadow's advice.

"Push forward."

"Understood," he affirmed before walking slowly towards Shadow and waiting for him to make the next move. He waited silently, blue locking with ruby, in some unrelenting mind battle before Shadow's fingers flinched and Tails struck out with a kick to his wrist. _Faster! __**Faster!**_ Using a hand to block the hedgehog's incoming fist with another, he dug the heel of his palm into Shadow's chin, retracting carefully when he heard a small crack in Shadow's neck. He still knocked Shadow down, making sure to secure his hands this time before he placed a hand on his collar bone, asking silently for surrender.

Shadow chuckled quietly before closing his eyes and nodding, signalling Tails to get off, "I surrender."

Still cautious as he got up, he took a moment to remind himself not to help Shadow up, even if it was instinctual because the last three times he'd tried to help Shadow up, the hedgehog pulled him down again, reminding him that he wasn't supposed to help his enemies.

He felt a hand on his head, and, with his instincts still hyper sensitised, he flinched, berating himself for not seeing it earlier. But the black hedgehog was not attacking him, simply tousling his fringe. Tails took a moment to take it all in, one of the only signs of affection Shadow had ever given someone, and he was too battered and bruised to appreciate it.

"You're going to be fine." Shadow removed his hand, and Tails looked up at him timidly.

"How do you know?"

"That relentless fighting gene is in your blood. You're ready for the race tomorrow, just don't underestimate your enemies and keep yourself sharp," he murmured, eyes cast to the two females by the entrance of the Black Arms rooftop. Cesario and Rouge were waiting for him. The bat rolled her eyes when she saw Shadow's conflicted expression.

"Spit it out, you pussy."

The red-streaked hedgehog growled and gave Rouge the bird before muttering, so quietly and almost inaudibly, "I'm… proud… of you."

Tails was shell shocked. Long after he left the warmth in Shadow's words provided him with a smile for the rest of the night, evidently forgetting about the strange green force Shadow had been able to conjure from his hands.

* * *

><p><em>We Will Fall Together<em> by Streetlight Manifesto

* * *

><p>"That is <em>so<em> mean of you, being cryptic to the kid and keeping secrets from him," Leilani berated him, the usual disdainful sneer in her voice.

_"Hypocrite."_ Shadow growled at her, snatching his gear from his charger as they made their way to the exit of the Black Arms, "Not telling him about Merlin is _nothing_ compared to not telling him who destroyed his girlfriend."

The black-haired GUN agent snarled at him, brown eyes flashing crimson. They made their way across the street and made their way into Leilani's apartment complex. Rouge's eyebrow's knitted together as she saw the human's hand shake.

"It isn't my place to tell him who corrupted her. We haven't even _met_ yet, what he's heard of me come from Heartnet and you two," she said as she started to ascend the stairs.

"Hey, isn't that a little unfair?" Rouge declared, trying to play peace-keeper between the two, "Lani, she wasn't even… okay, maybe she was, but technically he…" She slumped. This was a predicament.

"Who better to explain to him how Cosmo died, than the girlfriend of her killer?" Shadow growled, watching as Leilani's expression flashed from shock to rage. Rouge had three seconds to jump between them before she watched them kill each other, pressing one of her hands into Leilani's collar bone and one into Shadow's chest.

"I was _not_ his girlfriend! And I can't believe you would even say that you fucking insensitive _prick!_"

"_This?_ Coming from the girl that won't tell Tails _why_ he had to shoot his girlfriend? Do you know how much he's lamented over her in the past four years?" Shadow snarled.

"Hey! _Quit it!_" Rouge growled at the both of them. "Have you both forgotten our original purpose for being here? We're trying to make sure Shadow's board isn't being tampered with during the race, and if it is, we'll immediately be able to identify who did it. Remember? We're all friends here! You guys used to be so close."

"Oh stop lying, Rouge," Shadow growled, rolling his eyes.

"Oh no, she's right," Leilani said, straightening herself before sneering, "But then I stole your ice cream and you said you wouldn't be my friend anymore."

"Fuck you."

"I'm not into bestiality, but thanks for the offer, Sunshine."

"Gods, you're _just_ as bad as Heartnet."

"Too bad Heartnet doesn't have to deal with your fu-" she stopped, noticing that her grandmother was out of bed and staring at Leilani in disapproval. "Dapat ay sa kama." **(You should be in bed.)**

"Ano ang iyong ginagawa hanggang kaya huli?" **(What are you doing up so late?)**

"Gumagana. Matulog, Lola." **(Work. Go to sleep, Grandma.)**

"Hmm ...Goodnight, pagkatapos." **(Hmm …Goodnight then.)**

"Masyado kang." **(You too.)**

When the old woman had hobbled back into her room, Leilani rubbed her eyelids with her fingers. Rouge shook her head, "You know, I still don't know why you keep your grandmother around. It's extremely dangerous here."

"She's not _my_ grandmother. She's De Marco's. He's of Filipinas descent." Shadow was actually very shocked to hear this information. From the memories appearing that related to Cesario, all he remembered was that she was friends with Heartnet and Truscott. He didn't think she'd even be _capable_ of taking care of anyone else but herself. Oh yes, and then there was Chris, but he didn't think that Cesario's special brand of treatment towards Thorndyke would be considered as 'care'.

"Why are you taking care of someone else's grandmother?" Shadow murmured, the annoyance in her eyes meaning that she'd already been asked this question before. But her expression changed, very fast. _That_ he remembered; that Leilani's expressions had been like flickering squalls. Storms gone as fast as they came.

Her response was melancholy. Distant. But it seemed as if she had been robbed of all rage for the time being. "_I_ took Skye away from her. It's the least I could do."

"Well then why do you call her 'Grandmother'?" Rouge asked in disbelief, shaking her head while Leilani fiddled with her keys.

Leilani rubbed her hand over her face, her expression looking tired and worn, "She's under the impression that we were engaged."

"Did you tell her that?"

"No… Skye did. I just went along with it."

Leilani forced the door open, and it hit the wall with a resounding slam. There was a slight scuffling noise in one of the backrooms, and the black-haired agent rolled her eyes, "Thorndyke!"

"Coming!"

"Why did you do it? It sounds like he took a lot out of you," Shadow questioned, honestly curious and without disdain this time. There was also another thing he remembered about Cesario, there was just something that drew their two personalities together, and whether or not he liked to admit it, it was because they were both very similar. So much more than anyone else, even _Rouge,_knew.

There was a pause.

"Love does the _stupidest_ things to you."

* * *

><p><em>Slide <em>of Jak X: Combat Racing Soundtrack

* * *

><p>"Ready to go?"<p>

Tails repressed a shudder as Wave's voice reverberated through his head like some kind of pleasant wind chime, warming him from the inside out. Ever since he'd realised exactly what he'd felt for the swallow, life had been Hell. Not because the dynamic between them had changed, but because Caleb was a sadistic bastard, who just happened to be an empath. Luckily, Silver had managed to find out what Caleb's ultimate fear was, so that he could use it as blackmail to keep Tails' little crush a secret. But it didn't stop_anyone_ that had already figured out what had happened from pushing the limit of his sanity.

His fingers skittered across his work bench, nodding when he realised that nothing was out of place. "Y-yeah." His tone was timid, kittenish and quiet in the way that he address her, like a child that had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but she was far too gone at the moment to notice the drastic change in his demeanour, after all, she had a race to win.

"Ah, whoops," she quickly whizzed passed him, light red fabric falling over his shoulders like a hero's cape. "Don't forget your flannel. If ya don't wear it, people might forget who you are."

"Very funny." But his retort didn't sound that amused. The tone was flat. Bored. Melancholic maybe. He had his mind on other things.

"Hey…" she came up behind him, like a ghost. He was surprised by her appearance; it was as if she was teleporting about the place, with the energy of Charmy on sugar, "Are you alright?"

"I will be," he answered, shrugging her hand off and switching on his gear, making sure the settings were adjusted properly as he faced the rest of his friends. They were going in a group this time, to make sure that there weren't any more mishaps before the actual race began.

"Hey," her voice was soft and comforting, and he wondered whether it should have felt this nice to hear it, "calm down. You're going to do wonderfully."

"Like last time?" he sneered.

"Remember what I told you about that pessimism?" she muttered before smiling and ruffling his hair. He didn't understand why she was so happy, but it was making him nervous. Not because he thought she might have been planning something, or wanted to rub her successes in his face, but because her happiness _just_ made him nervous. He loved the way her eyes twinkled, and the sound of her voice when she wasn't sneering or scowling at him. He had to focus on his race, and Wave's constant distraction without intention was making it hard for him.

"Yeah," he replied, leaving her with a slightly hurt expression. He'd have to ignore her for now, make sure that the race had his complete concentration.

"Alright, we're off," Silver announced with Caleb and Marine in tow. Tails immediately knew what was happening, because Caleb had dyed his hair red again, and he was wearing dirty brown contacts.

"Why do you guys need to leave earlier?" Knuckles asked, who had just finished completing the setting arrangements for his own board.

"We've got a date with MarDean," Caleb announced, giving Tails a wink. He didn't know whether he should have been nervous or happy. Tails sighed and tried to smile, but the nerves were destroying him from the inside out.

* * *

><p><em>Oh My Ra<em> by Adam Lambert

* * *

><p>"Red suits you."<p>

"Piss off, you know it's disgustingly unflattering on me," Caleb joked, tugging on a strand of his lightened hair. "Does this colour make my bum look big?"

"Enormous, but I suppose your many suitors would like that thing, so what's it to me?" he laughed as they made their way into the square.

"You fellas are startin' ta freak me out," Marine rolled her eyes, but of course, she went unnoticed. Poor her. If she'd brought her iPod then she would have been able to avoid this traumatising conversation, but _no._ She wanted to help them overthrow the bugger that beat up Tails. Why did she subject herself to such horrors?

"Thinking about my sex life now? Doesn't it occur to you that fantasising about my body doesn't exactly scream 'straight'?"

"Fuck you."

"_Exactly_ the kind of comment I was expecting. I _knew_ you were hiding repressed feelings for me," Caleb teased.

"You're so full of yourself."

"I'd think that'd be physically impossible-"

Marine rolled her eyes, she'd finally had enough, "Don't ya realise what you two dills are doing?"

Caleb mocked indignation, "I can't believe you just called me that."

"What's a 'dill'?" Silver murmured, but this time, _he_ went ignored.

"You two are _flirting._"

Silver and Caleb locked eyes for a second before making disgusted faces. Caleb bit his lip, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile, "You're totally right, Marine. Silver needs to get laid if he's coming on to _me_ of all people."

The white hedgehog growled, about to attack him when Marine stopped his fist and pointed in the distance, "'S that 'im?"

"Yep."

They waited quietly, locking onto MarDean's head as they paid the admission fee and shoved through the crowd to reach him. The plan of action was simple: Silver had a pair of gloves with Caleb's blood on them, and he'd be using them to keep MarDean still while Caleb alerted the guards to their little scuffle. Since Marine was an aquakinetic, she could get the aloe vera out of MarDean's pocket if he refused to be searched, because liquefied aloe vera had a large quantity of H2O in it.

"Alright, I see some security over there," Caleb murmured. "Start causing some ruckus."

The brown fox disappeared while Silver weaved in between the crowd, making sure he kept his hands clenched so he wouldn't get the blood on anyone else. When he was right behind MarDean he latched onto the human, "Hiya Orbot! Long time no see, eh?"

"Silver? Get _off_ of me, you asshole!"

While the human was trying to swing him off, Marine had successfully managed to make it behind them and was observing the situation, making sure that nothing went awry. Caleb had just managed to get the security guards attention. Silver made sure to get Caleb's DNA all over MarDean's clothes before the security guards came over to them, in which Silver successfully managed to tackle MarDean down. When he slammed into the ground, Marine used her aquakinesis to make sure the small little bottle of aloe vera was tossed out of his coat pocket.

When the guards realised exactly what it was, they grabbed MarDean by each of his arms and hauled him away, "We're taking you to the N-Zone, for being in possession of stolen aloe vera."

"What? But _he_ gave it to me! This asshole right here! Gabe! Tell them the truth!" MarDean screeched. When the guards turned to Caleb the fox shrugged his shoulders.

"I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about," he replied innocently.

"I'll have your _head_ for this you fucking fraud!" the struggling human screamed as he was dragged out of sight, leaving the trio with grins and an intense satisfaction. They gave each other a quick high five before fighting to get good spectator seats. Solaris knew they'd need them.

* * *

><p><em>Supermassive Black Hole <em>by Muse

* * *

><p>They arrived in formation, making sure Tails was between Sonic and Shadow while the Babylon Rouges led the charge, Knuckles behind them. He was rather uncomfortable about the entire thing, but was all the more thankful for it, when he noticed how many reporters and paparazzi surrounded the entrance to the Competitor's Workshop. As soon as he got off his board, three reporters shoved their microphones in his face and bombarded him with questions he didn't want to answer.<p>

"Fox-trot! Is it true that you were brutally abused by an anti-mutant disciplinary group?"

"What happened to your tails? And your face?"

"Do you intentionally fracture your Extreme Gear to show off during the race?"

"The public would like to know if there's a special girl in your life?"

"What happened during the assault?"

"What is your opinion on the cash grant that Eggman granted you after the last race?"

"How does it feel to be labelled a cheater by all your competitors?"

"Do you worship Argus or Solaris?"

"Where did you receive your new scars?"

"Do you know or have any opinion on this 'Black Wings' rumour? Does it have anything to do with your garage?"

Tails growled, shoving past another reporter. He was already more disadvantaged then the rest of his team, considering his small stature and ultimately lighter body. The bodies around him were a river of muscle and strength, while he was a small, dainty little thing that could have been bent to their whim. He tried to catch up with Shadow, who was only a little ways away from him.

The reporters kept asking about the scars on his face, and it was making him really self-conscious. Of course, he hadn't cared much for them after Welshscot had performed his special brand of weird psychiatry on him, but now he remembered how truly disgusting they were. Tails wasn't particularly vain, but he didn't mind looking in the mirror in the morning before he received the scars around his eyes. Leave it to the paparazzi to remind him how weak he had been.

"Miles! Miles!" the reporters demanded over and over, like baby birds screaming in hunger. He was annoyed with the guards, who didn't seem happy with them at all. They were sitting in front of the door _playing poker! _Seriously. How unprofessional. He was grateful for the decrease in noise levels that stepping into the Competitor's workshop brought, but shivered when he realised that everyone but his companions were now staring at him with varying emotions. He shrunk back, but then saw the disapproving look that Shadow was giving him, and the worried one that Sonic was passing him, so he straightened his back and walked over to the list ranking as if he had all the confidence in the world.

Just like last time, he didn't have that much time until his race began. Only three races away and he'd have to compete. He scanned along his line and was shocked to see that Bean the dynamite and Wave were in his race. Wave was also having a similar revelation and had looked around to lock eyes with him. He only managed a few seconds before his nerves frayed and he looked away, embarrassed. So it looked like he only really had second or third place to compete for.

The monitors that displayed the fan base were in a riot, it seemed… Tails blanched. It looked like there were people _cheering_ for him! Yellow and black posters depicted supportive messages for Fox-trot, and his fans were getting into fights with anti-mutant resistance. On another monitor he caught sight of Silver, Marine and Caleb, watching MarDean being dragged away by the police. The caption underneath the screen said 'Alleged aloe vera thief arrested'. Tails smiled. It looked liked they'd come through for him. He was really happy to have their support while he was jumping up and down as if his limbs were being electrified.

He was alone for a bit, watching as Shadow and Knuckles went into their races respectively. Wave brushed past him to look at the monitor which was now depicting the winner of the last race. A happy armadillo was sporting a small trophy, but that wasn't what Wave seemed worried about.

"Look at all these competitors."

"What?" Tails murmured, finding nothing odd about them.

"They're _soaking_ wet." The kit didn't see the problem with this, not until he looked at Wave and the grimace that she was wearing as she looked down at her own clothes. They were her regular white crop top and flared jeans, but after she'd gone through the race, they'd be transparent. He could tell why she was upset now.

"Here." The fox placed his gear down and took off his flannel, tugging at the favourite comfy t-shirt underneath it.

"You sure?" she asked, taking the soft fabric in her hands.

"Yeah, you'll need it more than I will," he replied, as the announcement for their race came over the loud speaker.

_"Racers for twenty-two!"_

The swallow pulled on the flannel, which was a _perfect_ fit for her, considering it was a little loose for Tails, and ruffled his hair affectionately, "That's us. Want a kiss for good luck?"

_"No!" _the fox replied insistently, dipping down to grab his gear. He thought he might have been a little too harsh with the tone, because she looked at him with a mix of confusion and hurt before covering it up with indifference.

"Whatever. Good luck."

"You too," he answered automatically, immediately regretting his actions. He was acting too suspicious after all, and she was being hurt by his distance. He shook his head.

_I'll work on it later._

"Oh, I forgot to give you something," she said, taking off her glove and removing a small little bracelet. She was wearing two of them, and gave him an intricate little band of some metal he couldn't identify, decorated with glowing blue jewels, "It's an Ark of the Cosmos. It's meant to synchronise the gravitational force in the Un-Gravitify Extreme Gear range to make it perform better."

"I wasn't planning to use the polarity drive," he admitted. "I figured, if they're going to use a course with a lot of water, then they'd take into account the fact that Extreme Gear can act as compass needle points, and if a board didn't have enough power, then they wouldn't be able to steer efficiently because they'd keep on pointing north."

She bit her lip, "Tails, that is _exactly_ the kind of thing that Eggman would do, because there are not a lot of riders that would take that into consideration."

"You really think so?"

"Have you looked at the death count?" Yeah. It was up on the monitors, in the corner of a screen where they were streaming the latest news. It was at fifteen at the moment. According to the reporters, most of them had drowned. Those that hadn't drowned had been electrocuted because damage had been taken to the board and the circuitry had been exposed to the water. Goodie.

"Don't die, yeah?" she murmured as they stepped into the elevator.

The ascension made his stomach plummet, quashing the butterflies that had been wreaking havoc in there. He stumbled a little when he had finally been lifted onto the track, a little stunned to notice that, while they were in the Egg Dome, it looked completely different. It looked like they were in an aquarium, but Tails glanced further down the track and noticed that there was an entrance to the tunnel, which led into storming rapids and skies black and white with clouds and lightning.

_**"****Hello Soleanna!"**_Tails was startled to see a holographic image of Omochao appear on a screen right above the starting line. _**"If you hadn't heard, I'm the new commentator for the Grand Prix, and isn't it an exciting event?" **_She looked back in the screen and made a gesture towards the rapids, _**"This particular race course is called Tempest Waterway and features high velocity water currents designed to throw our particular racers off balance. There are only a few safe zones, so if you're riding on water, it isn't recommended you stop, or you **_**could**_** drown."**_

_Did they design this course so I couldn't stop? So that there's no repeat of what happened last time?_

_**"Ring accelerators have been installed in the course for those that can jump high enough to reach them,"**_she winked at them, but Tails knew that the gesture was meant for him. He didn't know how useful their little gift was going to be for him, considering the fact that he couldn't really fly to reach those vantage points. Maybe he should have worked on his tricks more. _**"And combat packages have been installed into nanite packaging on the fields, designed to dissolve as soon as the racer touches them, so keep an eye out for them! They have items including instant fuel, weapons, **_**rings**_**,saboteur packages and weaponry to give you the edge you'll need in the race.**_

_**"This race is promising to be an entertaining one with our very own Fox-trot and Wave of Babylon competing! Oh, I'm so excited!" **_He had no idea how their commentator could be so bubbly and hyperactive when there'd been so many deaths in the last few hours; he supposed it came with the job. One thing was for sure, he needed to get his hands on one of the combat packages to defend himself. The bandages on his tails had already sparked speculation and would label him as weaker than he was last time, but then again…

_Could they feel… threatened?_ he thought, as he watched the wary glances of those fighters next to him. If they weren't looking at him, they were watching Wave or Bean, who was jumping up and down next to Wave. It looked like he was trying to initiate conversation with her, being really friendly. Perhaps they knew each other? He still worried him, considering he had a reputation for his 'explosive' personality. They didn't call him 'Bean the Dynamite' for nothing.

He noticed that Wave, though she might have seemed irritated at first, seemed a little amused now, even offering the hyperactive nut a bit of a smile. He growled, but he didn't know why there was just a red hot flash in his veins that was uncomfortable and irritable, and it made him gnash his teeth together. He turned his attention back to the announcer.

* * *

><p><em>Survive <em>of Jak X: Combat Racing Soundtrack

* * *

><p><em><strong>"Racers! In positions!"<strong>_

Tails rolled his neck and separated his feet, looking backwards and keeping an eye on the line of green laser light. The electricity barring them from passing the starting line early came alive with the rest of the course. Lights flickered and floating swirls of water appeared from the sidelines, depicting how far they were from the line of electricity. Wave was smirking, sending him a wink as she rolled up the sleeves to his flannel, buttoning them up and casting her gaze over her shoulder where she knew the neon light was going to start speeding towards the starting line.

He stepped back slowly, a thrill rushing through him when he saw the green light flash past his sneakers. His body jolted violently. When he saw Wave dart forward, he pushed forward as well, sprinting towards the starting line. He was about ten meters from the line when the monkey next to him stuck out his tail with a malicious grin and he stared in horror as his foot got caught and he was sent to the ground with a vicious crash.

He threw his hands out to catch himself, his gloves meeting the floor with a painful slap as his legs gave out and tumbled to the floor. It was so completely embarrassing, but that wasn't registering in his mind right now. What _was_ tumbling through his head at speeds almost as fast as Sonic was the fact that he was now in _last_ place. He stumbled again on his way up, throwing out his board and waiting for it to change.

_**"Oh my, foul play on the field **_**already! **_**Can Fox-trot recover from this little setback?"**_

Tails snarled, annoyed that he hadn't seen it coming earlier. He twisted his heel to hit the thrusters and grabbed the only remaining nanite packaging left, materialising, in his hands, a chord that attached to his gear and sparked at the ends.

_Damn. This is a dangerous weapon for my enemies __**and**__ me._

As he expected, the waves were tossing him left and right, making it incredibly hard to steer. Luckily for him, the rest of the racers were moving at the same pace, meaning that if he played his cards right, he'd be able to catch up to them soon. He glanced from the monkey that tripped him to the power plug in his hands, thinking of a _really_ stupid idea. Well… his gloves were made of leather, which wasn't a conductor, but it wasn't really electrocution safe either.

He groaned and swung the end in his hand, watching it spark precariously before throwing the conduit forward as hard as he could. It hit home and landed at the monkey's leg, electrocuting him and sending him flying onto the nearest spring ramp. Once the enemy fell off his board, the weapon in Tails' hands dissolved into the white gust often associated with Extreme Gear when they changed, and he pressed on the air accumulation button to perform his first trick, flipping through the air so fast that he landed in front of a few people… and then the problems started.

There was a familiar thrum in the air and suddenly his board was lifted from the currents, to pause for a second and then hit the waters with a dull splash. He ignored the malfunction for a second before it started to happen again. The third time, only thirty seconds from the first and he started to panic.

_My gravity unit is screwing up!_

Right after he realised this, the board ascended into the air, and threw him, right into a wall. He fell off his board, but he'd landed in a safe zone, and managed to get up without drowning. His fur was soaked through and though, the rain and rapids dripping down his muzzle, adding a weight to him he just didn't need.

_How could they have damaged my board again? I didn't even let it go… except for…_

Yes… he'd put the board down when he'd offered Wave his flannel. Though he didn't know how someone could screw up his gear so badly in such a short time frame unless… unless they'd had access to nanite technology or some Ark of the Cosmos. He stood up from where he fell, ignoring the pain as he looked down at his clenched fist.

_Wave wouldn't… __**sabotage**__ me… would she?_

He ran forward with increasing difficulty. At the moment, he was seventh in the competition. He could just make out the rest of the riders in the distance. The fox ran, throwing his gear down and hopping onto it as he hit the thrusters again, noting that most of his fuel was still in his tank, despite his receding gravity points for his 'accidental' board malfunctions. He looked at the Ark of the Cosmos on his wrist and contemplated throwing it off, when the thought of accidentally triggering one of these spasmodic episodes actually started.

_**"Board trouble again? Things are not going well for Fox-trot."**_

But _this_ time, the glowing blue gems from his wrist shone brightly, as if they were being lit by the inside out. He tumbled through the waves when, in his mind, he told it to stop and the gravity let him down. He was astounded to say the least. His smart, analytical mind deduced what was happening immediately.

_So, the Ark of the Cosmos actually allows me to __**control**__ the Extreme Gear with my mind. When the board's gravitational unit malfunctions, the bracelet will not glow._

Just as he was passing a trick ramp (and deciding to pass it, considering all the _other _problems that had appeared recently) the gravitation unit in his board started malfunctioning again. He was lifted into the air, but this time, he held up his hand, and willed the board to turn around so that he wouldn't go in the wrong direction. This time, he lasted a lot longer before he was thrust _in _the direction of the wall.

_**"Wave of Babylon is soaring through the competition, a grand total of **_**nine**_** kilometres in front of second place!"**_

Tails panicked, afraid his head was going to hit the wall when, to his astonishment, his board went parallel to the glowing blue wall and he started _riding_ it.

_**"Something INCREDIBLE has occurred! It seems Fox-trot has started **_**riding **_**the wall! No one's mastered the Un-Gravitify range well enough to **_**perform**_** such an act before! Could this be his saving grace?"**_

The yellow fox, still stunned by what was happening, grasped his chance by the handle and started to use it. He was still a little light headed, considering the rain was hitting him on the _right_ side of his body, and everything felt so completely out of place. He panicked again, when the wall revealed rocky terrain and he was flung from one side of the track to the other, using one of the robot's maintenance tunnels to come out one the _other _end of the course! They hadn't told him off yet, so he assumed this might have still been in the boundaries range. Once he landed on the waters again, he passed one of the monitors and say a mirroring camera image of himself, looking in a different direction, with a highlighted _1st_ flashing across the screen.

_AMAZING!_

He went from last to first in a matter of minutes! And what about this incredible ability to manipulate gravity like he had done? This was miraculous!

His euphoria didn't last long however, because in a matter of seconds Wave was right beside him, flashing him a worried glance, "What's wrong with your gear?"

"I don't-" halfway through his sentence, Tails' board, as if on cue, started to lift into the air before it gave out all together and plunged him into the icy black water.

It had only been three seconds since she'd passed Tails, as his board had screwed up and operated without consent again. The only reasonable assumption would be to say that his board was sabotaged again. She decided not to think much of it, instead focusing on finishing the race. That had been the plan, up until she saw one of the nearby monitors, depicting Tails loosing control of his board, and then plummeting into the water. She brought her board to a complete halt and listened to Omochao's commentary.

_**"Oh no! It looks like Fox-trot's fallen into the water, due to his odd board malfunction. Could this be the end of the line for Soleanna's youngest and most controversial racer?"**_

Omochao's earlier words were repeating in Wave's thoughts as second, third and fourth place passed her; _**'There are only a few safe zones, so if you're riding on water, it isn't recommended you stop, or you **_**could **_**drown.'**_

_**"What's this? It looks like Wave has stopped. Bean the Dynamite has now taken the lead."**_

Wave clenched her fist and then gripped the fabric of the flannel where her thundering heart was, cursing under her breath before she used the gravity control unit to perform a full three-sixty, ignoring the indignant shouts of the crowd and Omochao in her ears. Out of breath, soaked and frightened, she moved at lightning speed backwards through the track, saying goodbye to fifth and sixth place as she raced back to where Tails had been swallowed up by the churning, violent waves.

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**Q. What is Caleb's ultimate irrational fear?**

* * *

><p><em>A. Molluscs.<em>

At six years old, one normally doesn't develop a phobia involving squeam-ism while surrounded by dirt and muck and lovely filthy things. Unfortunately, considering Gabriel's posh heritage, and likelihood to having been waited on hand and foot, he didn't have the immunity towards gross items that normal children did. So when his mother took him to Spagonia to celebrate his birthday, she thought it would be a wonderful idea to try out a new dish.

'New dish' was cautiously prodded with a fork.

"Mom, what's this?" It was slimy and gross-looking and smelt like garlic butter.

"Escargot, Darling. You should try some."

Gabriel prodded it again, pushing his overgrown bangs from his forehead and staring at it with wide blue eyes, "But I see the kids outside the fence playing with these." He picked one up by the shell, trying to peer past the greenery inside the shell, trying to figure out what was so fascinating about this item. This apparently edible item.

Selina rolled her eyes at her son's curiosity and instead pushed a plate of sweets towards him, "If you really don't want to eat it, you can have chocolate truffles instead, okay Baby?"

The little brown fox nodded, grinning when he reached for the treat, picking one up before one of the clumsy waiters bumped into his chair, almost making him drop the two items in his hands. Still a little shaken, he popped the truffle into his mouth and moved to put the escargot back onto the plate when he realised he was holding the truffle.

He shuddered when he felt something slimy and moving inside his mouth before he abruptly spat it out crying, and running out of the restaurant.

* * *

><p>Eleven years later and Caleb had developed an irrational fear of molluscs.<p>

There was a high pitched scream, and it echoed throughout the Black Arms before Caleb bounded down the stairs and jumped into Silver's arms, shaking with fright. Tails and Shadow snorted at the ridiculous display. Tails was reading in the library and Shadow was working on a sketch in the makeshift art studio.

"-stupid and gross with its beady eyes and slimy skin, plus they have like no hands, how can you trust them? Freakish and weird little creatures that carry their homes on their backs! Like turtles except I like turtles because they're not slimy like-like-like like WORMS! Except I don't mind worms much either, because they're not this icky brown colour and they don't leave their mess behind them! Can you imagine it? It'd be like leaving a constant trail of piss or faeces or regurgitation behind you, like non-Mobian dogs or PENGUINS! They're evil, corrupt little creatures that will bite your heads off when you're not looking! They'll suck out yous soul because they're just that underestimatable like-like-like like Creampuff! 'Cept she doesn't carry a home on her back or have icky slimy skin. Plus she doesn't dream about ripping out your guts and throwing your masticated insides to the heavens! Get it out! !"

Silver dropped Caleb on the floor with a thud and a pained 'oomph' before investigating the 'soul-sucking icky thing'.

"Wait a second. Let me get this straight, you'll run, with vigour into a manor full of armed security guards. You'll gladly participate in a gang war. You'll do deals with men that are mentally insane, and you'll organise a heist to steal Soleanna's most wanted drug from Whiskers of all people… but you're afraid of a measly little _snail?_"

"I didn't ask you to recall my monthly accomplishments, I asked you to get rid of that freaky little monster on the window sill!"

Silver rolled his eyes. Tails was in hysterics, rolling on the floor of their makeshift library.

"Say please."

"Never! Get it out! I know you're going to use this against me, and you're going to make my life miserable using it. I'm gonna have to do something embarrassing, or painful, or something I'm just not going to like, but I don't care right now! Just get it out!" he snarled. "You don't even have to use your bloody hands; just use telekinesis to get it off the sill."

"Say it," Silver demanded, golden eyes smug and confident.

"What?" he whined. Shadow placed a hand over his mouth, obviously trying to hide his smile.

"I'm not getting it out unless you say it."

"Wait a second!" Tails demanded, rolling onto his stomach and getting his phone out of his pocket, "I need to record this."

"P-pl-pl-" he was three letters from finishing the word when he looked up and saw Silver's smirk, "Fuck this," he got up, "I'm going to use your pillow to shove it out the window."

"Hey! Don't touch my stuff!"

"Says the one that stole my wallet!"

"Don't you dare, or I'm putting the snail in your bed!"

"Then I'll shove my fist in your face!"

"Try it, you Twilight-reading poof!"

"This is why you're _alone!_"

Tails and Shadow sighed before continuing what they were doing; ignoring the sounds of a brawl breaking out and an abrupt smash of something breakable hitting the floor.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>I love cliff-hangers, if you hadn't already figured it out.

Kobes had so much fun writing the excerpt. Here are this update's questions:-

**1.** Five random items from Shadow's Room. (humour)

**2.** A flashback of The Crimson Night. (supernatural)

**3.** Silver's relationship with the Crisis City Police Department. (crime)

Until next time, review!~

**ღ**


	39. Come please, I'm callin'

**domi|note: **Thanks to **HalfWright**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **superechidna**, **insidious fanboy**, **Exploder**, **Taichi L. Yagami**, **Undead009**, **SmallSpek**, **Stonefaced610** and**DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the last chapter.

**(Updated; 23rd of February 2012, **Thanks again **Pixelated Firefly **for doing a marvellous job.**)**

And a special thank you to **domino sucks** for making me laugh, how does it feel to live under a bridge? Seriously? Go flame someone that actually cares about your opinions. And get some English Fundamentals lessons while you're at it.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. ~Aristotle<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Thirty Nine<br>_.  
>"Heaven's gates won't open up for me, with these broken wings I'm fallin', and all I see is you. These city walls ain't got no love for me. I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth story, and oh I scream for you. Come please I'm callin', and all I need from you. Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'."<br>_...  
><em>_Aquatic Capital/Tempest Waterway_ of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity Soundtrack

* * *

><p>The world was awash of white <em>bubbles<em> and splashes of black as he screamed out his surprise, and evidently his air supply. He was frantic, the loss of his board had frightened him, and the prospect of drowning was so god-damned real now that he thought of inhaling the water and being done with it. But Tails was _not_ like that. Tails did _not_ give up when things seemed hopeless. That might have been him in another life, but he refused to die now. Not when he had come so far. Not when his friends were waiting for him to prevail. Not when his fans, scared and timid, saw him as a beacon of hope for the rest of the mutant population. No. He wouldn't let them win. He'd _never_ let them win.

Even though it felt like there was a weight tied around his neck, pulling his body down like some kind of invisible sea monster, he forced his arms out in front of him, kicking his legs and climbing upwards where he could see the flash of lightning through the watery sheen of the surface. He'd just about broken the water, when there was a flash of purple streaked across his vision and in seconds he was ripped from the water, stunned and gasping for air, onto the back of Wave's Air Ride.

"Look alive, Tails!"

He shook his head and focused, blinking the rain out of his eyes, knuckles going white as the swallow performed the most violent move he had ever had the misfortune of experiencing, a turn that was so fast it nearly dislodged his neck. But he didn't have the time to recover, in seconds they would be where his Extreme Gear rocked between the waves and… yes, just a little closer!

He snapped it up with the edge of his hand, looked it over incredibly quickly before rattling it once. Just as he thought, there was something wrong with it.

"What's wrong?" Wave had to scream over the sounds of storm and thunder. She was doing a good job of catching up with the competition, a few more kilometres and they would be in the second lap, and he could already see the racers in sixth and seventh place.

"Do you have a wrench?"

"Glove compartment," she replied.

He gripped into her shoulder as he reached around to unlatch it, which was possibly one of the most _difficult_ things he had ever done, considering he was leaning over a girl and _not_ enjoying it. The fox tore at the side panel of his board, trying to ignore Omochao's unnecessary comments.

_**"For the first time in competitive history, it looks like Wave and Miles are TEAMING UP to fix his board malfunction! Who would have thought of this twist? But apparently **_**yes, **_**this is **_**not**_** against the rules, so stop groaning audience!"**_

"Enlil, I _love_ this announcer," Wave announced.

"Me too!" he agreed. His gravity unit was sparking uncontrollably due to some kind of short circuit. The power was festering and didn't have anywhere else to go, so it was taking it out on the drive, screwing up his performance. He thought quickly, about what to do, when he noticed the flash of blue underneath his glove.

"Wave, if I lodge the Ark of the Cosmos in between the spark plugs and the gravity unit, do you think…?"

"Tails, that's _genius!_ That should be enough to over-ride the inability to control your gear! Quick, do it now before we hit the rapids!" she yelled, looking over her shoulder as Tails did as he was told, slamming his panel down.

"Three-sixty!" he yelled, leaping off her Extreme Gear, swivelling to land as he fell on a cushion of air. Once they were both righted, they locked eyes, grinned and hit the thrusters.

_**"Bean the Dynamite is proving to be a hazard! His bombs are completely wrecking the course! Who let him in with those anyway?"**_

They were still very far from Bean, but they were coming up to the rest of the competition like twin rockets. A fierce grin had plastered itself to Tails' face as he watched the rest of the competition fly behind them. Having no board difficulties was _sweet! _Tails and Wave had looped around the rest of the competition flawlessly, their light-trails like the smooth edge of an hourglass. It was getting past Bean, the hyperactive nut; _he_ was going to be the problem.

_**"Look at this folks! Wave and Tails are burning through the competition like wildfire! Talk about pocket-rockets. Can Bean handle the heat?"**_

From here on out, they were supposed to be enemies, but Tails would rightly confess that he couldn't really get past Wave. It was her board specs; they were just that much higher than his own. But he would readily brag that his board was faster than the rest of the competitions. Bean was still a challenge though; the lunatic knew how to ride his board _backwards_ and would then focus on bombarding his competition with… well… _bombs. _And Tails couldn't focus on avoiding the tidal waves and the falling debris of the course at the same time.

He'd have to focus on keeping his speed until the next time he reached a combat package, keep his concentration solely on not slowing down or else he might have been over taken. He saw a trick ramp that would lead him right into an accelerator ring if he executed the trick carefully, and headed for that, delighting in the thrill of rushing through the air as if he was faster than the artificial rain. It didn't last long however, because another bomb took out some of the building around him, propelling him face first into a wall.

_**"What a crash! Let's get that on repeat folks. Send it to Soleanna's Funniest Home Videos."**_

He growled, gripping onto the edge of a sandstone slab to make sure he didn't almost drown again.

_Solaris, that was embarrassing._

He righted himself and swerved around the slab, panicking when he looked up and saw another piece of stone fall from the structures around him, landing a few hundred meters in front of him, and he wouldn't have the time to swerve around it. He did the first thing that came to his mind. He accumulated air with the brakes and once he was at the edge of the stone he performed a quick forward somersault, getting the crowd to erupt into cheers. Slicking his bangs up, he sped forward, figuring out how to get past the whirlwind that was Bean.

* * *

><p><em>Fight or Flight <em>of Jet Set Radio Future Soundtrack

* * *

><p>Green feathers flew past the rest of the competition in a blinding blur of bright light. Simultaneous races going on at the same time, and two commentators handling the news, Omochao and her brother Chocola, both couldn't keep up with the news that the young riders were bringing forth this day.<p>

He would admit that he wasn't a fan of tracks like this. The first half of the Egg Dome was being used as a deathly water way, but the second was a changed version of Megalo Station, altered so that it was dark and absolutely pouring, so no matter which race you went to, you were going to end up soaked. The particular track was called Nightside Rush and looked very much like City Escape on a dark, rainy night (except the crash rate here was so much higher). Already two fatalities had graced the monitor screens and it was only the second lap. Jet was joined in the race by a horrible character that looked very much like Sonic, but apparently, his name was Scourge.

"Move it, Parrot! And go home cryin' to yer mama!"

"Wise words for a green needle-mouse," Jet called back, as he hit the thrusters, accumulating air before he tossed his body back, performing a triple backflip kick spin, landing immaculately. He flashed Scourge a two fingered salute as he passed the finish line, starting his last lap. Things had been going so smoothly so far, that was until Scourge caught up to him. The hedgehog was surprisingly fast, even if he had some kind of mediocre board.

He was just racing along, minding his own business when-BAM! Scourge's board had rammed into his, which in turn, slammed him into the wall. The metal on his side was dented sparked as Jet desperately tried to push away from the wall before the side of would eat up his board and damage the insides. The both of them pulled around the second corner, running right into a nanite combat package. Jet smirked when the twin fans materialised in his hands, very familiar with these weapons, one simple flick of the hand, and a gust of wind so strong propelled from the tips of the feathers, slamming into Scourge like a wall of bricks.

He thought he was in the clear, only a few kilometres until he'd reached the finish line, but apparently Scourge had other ideas. Despite damaging him so thoroughly, the hedgehog was persistent. Jet glowered, noticing the flash of bright green underneath his glove and remembering a technique that his father had taught him, so very long ago.

_Meteor Dive._

His vision flashed negative as he was lifted into the air, a feeling of weightlessness overtaking him as he flew through the air, breaking the sound barrier and defying all laws of gravity. Broken trains rose into the air so he could run across them, using them to leap from one carriage to another at break-neck speed. The crowd erupting like an atomic bomb as he soared through the finish line.

* * *

><p><em>To be reborn<em> of Jak X: Combat Racing Soundtrack

* * *

><p>They had almost completed their second lap when Bean came into sight, near the starting line so that he couldn't bomb anything down. There was a line of combat packaging, and they could see the devious gleam in Bean's eyes. That's it. If Bean received anything that was weaponry, they didn't have any chance of passing him until he lost it, which could have lasted until the end of the race. It was hard to process any thought when Bean was in front of them, about to receive a bomb in hand. Three. Two. One.<p>

Tails was delighted when he saw the abject look of horror on Bean's face. He whooshed forward for a limited amount of time, and then continued on as normal. Wave and Tails ran into the combat packages either side of the one that Bean had taken, delighting in the dynamite and power chord that materialised in their hands.

_**"This looks like bad news for Bean, as the best technicians in Soleanna team up against him. Can he survive this onslaught?"**_

He laughed when Wave screamed, "Let's see how _you_ like it!" Her aim was perfect as the explosion burst like fire crackers before Bean, wobbling him a bit. Tails finished him off, using the power chord as a lasso to hook the edge of his board and pull it right out from under him. Bean was right next to the nearest safe zone, so he didn't bother helping him out of the water as they rocketed right past him, cheering all the way.

They rode the rest of the course side by side, often making sure that they looked back and made sure there were no enemy competitors behind them. That was until they hit the final stretch of race, and Tails panicked when he saw Bean coming up behind them with two sets of bombs in his hand. Adrenaline thrummed through his veins as he saw Wave look back. He looked down, and saw that there wasn't enough fuel to hit the thrusters again, just enough to finish the race. He looked to Wave, wondering what to do, and then looked to Bean, who was pulling back his arm, ready to throw his bombs.

"Give me your hand!"

Looking back on that moment now, he wondered why he _ever _followed her directions. He could have died, or she could have pushed him off his board. But he didn't, and this is what happened;

Just as Bean threw the bombs at him, he reached out and took Wave's hand, the spark of electricity dancing through the connection before she used her strength to pull him away from Bean's direct fire, and throw him in front of her. With a violent gust of air, he passed the finish line, Wave milliseconds behind him.

_**"Fox-trot of Black Arms; FIRST PLACE! Followed incredibly closely by Wave of Babylon; second place! Bean the Dynamite; third place! What an exhilarating match, with barely-there misses and tag-teams! You never fail to impress us Fox-trot," **_Omochao's praise was music to his ears.

He'd won, and _damn_ did it feel good.

He immersed himself in the sound of the crowd cheering his name, and for a few precious seconds, he felt invincible.

* * *

><p><em>Still Waiting <em>by Sum 41

* * *

><p>As soon as he finished the race, he was about to collect his prize money when one of the guards grabbed his arm, tore him away from his board and threw him into a white interrogation room. Jet was right next to him, looking equally pissed.<p>

Tails looked around; there was a not-so-discrete security camera in the corner, but nothing else apart from that. The door creaked open, and, amazingly enough, Geoffrey St. John strutted into the room, giving Tails a glare before settling himself down on one side of the interrogation table, wobbling the glass of water that was placed into the corner nearest to Geoffrey, "It's come to our attention that the both of you have performed acts today that are physically impossible. Therefore, I've been asked to interrogate the both of you to see if your purposefully tampering with the inverse kinetics of the board to perform feats that should be impossible. Explain to us what you have done, or you run the risk of being eliminated from the competition."

"This is utter bullshit," Tails growled, sick to death of people that were under Eggman influence. He looked at Geoffrey, noticing that the skunk was scarred and nursing a black eye. He hoped that either Sonic or Scourge had given it to him. He was feeling pretty violent himself right now, "Someone sabotages _my_ board and _I _get blamed for it? I mean, I _know_ you probably have surveillance cameras all over the Racer's Workshop, why don't you tell me who screwed up my board?"

"No use trying to play innocent, Prower, just tell me what you did to your board to make it go so fast, you too Mr. Hawkington."

"Enlil," Jet rolled his eyes, running a hand through his feathers, "It's 'Hawk', _just _'Hawk'."

"I don't really care, just speak," Geoffrey growled, but he looked more bored than anything else.

"Listen up, we haven't done _anything_ wrong," Jet snarled at him. "If everyone else had their board specs up to my technician's level, then _everyone_ would be performing the Meteor Dive."

"Is that what it's called?"

Jet made a face. No. He wasn't meant to reveal that kind of information. He'd heard him speak about it once or twice with Wave and Storm when Tails _shouldn't_ have been eavesdropping. Tails drummed his fingers against the table and Geoffrey made a sour face at him.

This was awkward.

Tails thought about something ridiculous Sonic had said the other day; _'Every time you point out an awkward silence, a gay baby is born' _or something ridiculous like that. Caleb had taken offense to that, and threw the toaster at his head.

"Prower, you're one of the best technicians I know. But unfortunately, you're a mutant and I can't let you go until you tell me what you did to your board."

"I didn't do _anything_ to the bloody board. Although it _does_ perform better than most of the competition."

"What about you?" the skunk turned cold eyes towards Jet, who had crossed his legs over in boredom. "Have you anything to say?"

"Um… I'm getting hungry; do you have any bird seed here? I could seriously go for a muesli bar."

Tails snorted, but Geoffrey seemed to be getting really angry at the both of them, "Listen up, Dipshits. I don't want to be here any more than you do, so unless fess up and tell me what the _fuck_ do did, then neither of us are getting out of this situations. Bad enough I have to associate myself with you fucking mutants, but _speaking_ with you? Eggman's lost his marbles. Maybe I am too; all that time spent around you Freedom Fighters must have screwed my brain up good."

Tails had been listening to Geoffrey's rant half-heartedly, using the Ark of the Cosmos to experiment with the gravity in the room. The skunk was so angry that he didn't notice the glass of water levitate on the table a little bit. Tails' eyes flashed to Jet, and the hawk blinked, seeming to understand Tails' silent request. He looked to the fox's hands, watching as he lay four fingers against his thigh. Three. Two…

"_Especially_ your parents."

Tails snapped. The glass of water, through gravity control, went hurtling into the camera, destroying the lense and the security footage.

"_Screw you_, St. John," he snarled. "The Freedom Fighters _didn't_ murder your wife!"

In three seconds, St. John's gun was out, and in five Jet had struck him in the back of the head, rendering him unconscious. "Let's get out of here," said Jet.

* * *

><p><em>Cops and Robbers<em> by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>After they had collected their money from some very freaked-out looking Eggman representatives, they moved to collect their Extreme Gear from the security guards that had taken them away, noticing that they were guarding them and playing poker with them at the same time. Jet sauntered up to them with all the confidence of a Babylonian Prince, and for a second he wondered if re-incarnation was possible.<p>

"Hey. We've come to collect our boards again."

"Yeah," the security guard, who was the same giant hulking ape from Tails' first race commented, "we'll give you the boards… for nine hundred rings."

"Hey!" Tails growled at them. "That's _all _our prize money!"

"Well, if you want your weird little planks back, you're going to have to give us all your money," the ape, whose name was 'Simon' now that he bothered to read his name tag, reminded him of MarDean, except uglier, a lot more muscular and he had all of his fingers (teehee!)

"Hey!" Wave's voice echoed through the now empty stadium. Maybe they'd been inside the interrogation room longer than they thought. She was next to Silver and 'Gabe' or rather, Caleb still hadn't gotten a chance to dye his hair back to normal, but he'd taken out his weird contact lenses. "We've been looking all over for you."

"Well, if it isn't Fox-trot's girlfriend," the other guard, whose name was 'Sleuth'.

"Hey!" Jet growled, "Uncalled for."

The Mobian dog cringed, "Is this some kind of fucked up triangle?"

"Dude, she's like my sister," Jet stuck out his tongue.

"Actually it's more like a pentagon," Caleb butted in, pointing in an odd direction, "the White One here is in love with me, I'm hopelessly in love with Prower, Fox-trot's in love with the sparrow here, Jet's in love with Silver and Wave is in love with her nuclear reactors." He shrugged, even if everyone was giving him a death glare, "It's a bit dramatic, isn't it?"

"I didn't ask you."

"Geez, don't have to go ape about it."

The primate rolled his eyes. Silver snorted. What a horrible pun.

"Just give us back our Gears," Tails demanded, his fists shaking.

The primate held up his hands, but he was still holding a fan of playing cards in the other, "Pay up."

"Oh my golly-gosh, are you guys playing _poker?_" Caleb interrupted them, and Tails nearly shoved him aside due to his developing headache. And then he opened his eyes in realisation. Caleb and Silver played card games all the time. Caleb was _phenomenal_ at them (mostly because he liked to _cheat_ a lot.)

"Yeah, what of it?"

"I'll wager you the nine hundred you want, _both_ of the Extreme Gear boards, plus…" Caleb thumbed through his wallet, pulling out_ten_ golden rings, each valued at a hundred bronze rings. Where the _Hell_ had he gotten that kind of money? "An extra ten thousand on the side."

"Gabe! Remember what I told you about throwing your money into card games? We still haven't paid of your debt from the last time you lost," Silver's sentence confused him, until he realised what the white hedgehog was doing. They were lying to get their boards back. He felt a warm gooey feeling inside his chest that he almost smiled at, but then the primate snorted and nodded his head.

Caleb's blue eyes glinted dangerously as he leaned in and purred, "So… Can I play?"

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**A flashback of The Crimson Night.**

* * *

><p>Cecilia De Marco was a reasonable woman, despite what everyone else thought. And she <em>could<em> in fact, speak English, it was just around her granddaughter-in-law that she decided she didn't want to, especially considering she was one of the only ones that could understand their native language. Around the other occupants of their quaint little apartment complex she was a perfect little old woman, who was a nice host, unless it regarded those reckless kids from across the street.

She swore the Black Arms brought nothing but trouble and riff-raff. Just the other night that small little raccoon had flooded their bathroom and she had to ring up the repair man to clean it up. No, anyone over the age of twenty-five was just fine with her.

She was sipping tea now, with her friend Jack. She rather liked Jack. He liked to talk, and he liked to listen, in fact he liked to taste and touch as well, anything that would have made up for his missing sight. Poor thing. Cecilia liked to reminisce with Jack, about their lives ten years ago, how splendid! When they had still been able to walk and remain completely independent. She'd still had a grandson then as well.

Today, she didn't particularly like Jack's subject, but there was a time and a place, and sometimes she just needed a good cry. But it was one of _those_ stories, even the ones that Cecilia found a little far-fetched.

"He was a blur of black and red, before me, I swear. His voice echoes in my memories, accompanied by the slashes of red light, and the blood, and the _screaming!_ Oh Cecilia, it was terrible."

Jack recalled the moment that he went blind a _lot, _but for some reason, it never made sense. She still couldn't understand why.

"The Fallen Angel, I tell you. It _had_ to be him. I can remember. I'm forgetting a lot of things now Cecilia. I'm getting old, _so_ old. But… I can still remember his voice. It was young, deep, and filled with such anguish I was sure that his heart was being torn apart."

"How can you feel sympathy for the being that took your sight away?" she murmured, brown eyes trying to see the sunglasses of the man in front of her. Jack reached forward and grasped the hand that was not holding a tea cup.

"Because he granted us _salvation! _He saved us from the evil beings, Cecilia. How can you _not_ believe?"

She sighed, "The Fallen Angel killed my grandson, Jack. I haven't believed in anything since."

"Oh you're right, you're right. I'm sorry." He apologised, but Jack's memory was even worst than Cecilia's and he would be asking her about her faith again tomorrow, and she couldn't bring herself to yell at a blind man, no matter how many times she had to remember how she'd lost the only person dear to her.

There was an abrupt yelling outside, and she looked outside to investigate, it was rather late after all. She spied her granddaughter-in-law with two of her friends. Cecilia also noticed that she was still wearing her stupid uniform.

"Too bad Heartnet doesn't have to deal with your fu-" Cecilia looked at her with disapproval. She knew Leilani swore a lot, but she didn't have to yell so late at night, "Dapat ay sa kama." **(You should be in bed.)**

"Ano ang iyong ginagawa hanggang kaya huli?" **(What are you doing up so late?) **Cecilia asked her. But then again, she knew she was going to get an elusive response. Leilani never answer her properly.

"Trabaho. Matulog, Lola." **(Work. Go to sleep, Grandma.)**

"Hmm ...Goodnight, pagkatapos." **(Hmm …Goodnight then.) **She knew it. She regarded her two friends, a black hedgehog and a white bat, who she had come to know as Shadow and Rouge, with the smallest of nods before returning the Jack's room. Of course she wasn't going to listen to Leilani. She might have been old, but she still had a bit of rebellion in her.

"Masyado kang." **(You too.)**

When she returned to Jack, the old man was crying, and she rushed over as soon as her fragile old hips would allow, asking, "What's wrong, Jack?"

And he answered, "That's him! _That's him!_"

Cecilia looked around confused, was Jack seeing some kind of religious apparition that she could not?

The soft voices from outside were still wafting through the door.

_"Why are you taking care of someone else's grandmother?"_

"_That's_ him! That's the voice the Fallen Angel!" Jack was sobbing, but he was smiling, his thin wrinkly skin crinkled as he cried in happiness. "He's come to save us again!"

Apparently, Jack was more sick than she thought.

_"Why did you do it? It sounds like he took a lot out of you."_

Cecilia looked around again, but the only voices that she could hear were that of her granddaughter, Rouge and… and Shadow.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>Hey, we didn't say what _kind_ of flashback it was going to be, and we're _very_ careful about revealing information regarding The Crimson Night. On another note; empath + poker. Haha. Pssh, yeah, I wonder who's gonna win?

Does anyone have any songs they think would suit this story?

Here are this update's possible drabbles:-

**1. **Storm and Wave, flashback during Divine Wings Academy, trying to sneak Jet out of detention. (humour)

**2. **Tails meets Lottie Heartnet for the first time. (family)

**3. **Blaze visiting her father in hospital. (angst)

**ღ**


	40. I Just Don't Feel Safe Anymore

**domi|note: **400 reviews! Thank you guys so much. I'm so much closer to my story goal than I ever thought I would be. Thanks sooo sooo sooo much for writing down your opinions because hearing from you! Even if it's a simple 'keep going' but that doesn't mean you have to stop there. Drop by and write something down, I don't bite. Much.

You guys were really divided with the drabble involving Lottie and the drabble involving Blaze, so I'm incorporating Lottie in the chapter, because it was going to happen anyway.

Thanks to **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **Taichi L. Yagami**, **superechidna**, **The Silent Insomniac**, **Exploder**, **LordCooler**,**HalfWright**, **Stonefaced610**, **insidious fanboy** and **Undead009 **for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Luck: when your burst of energy doesn't run afoul of someone else's. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Forty<br>_.  
>"Creeping up on you, it knows your name. All that you left behind will never be the same. It's come for all that you hold dear. She starts to cry, and hears a song to break your heart."<br>_...  
><em>_Choices _by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>Tails liked to believe that he could read people pretty well. Sadness. Happiness. Anger. Fear. Boredom. They were the basic emotions, and very easy to decipher, right? But over the course of knowing Caleb, he'd come to realise it was never that simple. Caleb had incredible means to be a psychiatrist, if it weren't for the fact that his personality would have people <em>committing<em> suicide rather than preventing it. The brown fox understood that every single emotion was a branch related to another one, each emotion was a colour that had been mixed together through different shades. Each was beautiful in a weird, scary kind of painting that the artist had been trying to envision since he was small.

Tails had seen them. In his sketchbook, there were pictures that were random flashes of colour. Sometimes they made a smaller, more intricate picture between the swirls of light and dark, but then again, there were also those that were more bold and dramatic. These pictures were signed in Caleb's hand, a slanting running-writing that was almost illegible. Not ugly by any means, just hard to read. Each of those scribbles, when examined closely, was a name. When he'd seen Shadow's, he'd been confused. Shadow's picture was a mix of blue, black, red and grey with the smallest amount of pink hue. It wasn't until he realised what Caleb was painting did he get it. This had been Shadow's emotional aura, and in a way it was beautiful.

Now he could see it, it was in Caleb's eyes, the way he toyed with the guards** (i)**, plucking their strings like a finely tuned violin, keeping them frustrated and angry, but just calm enough to continue the game. Caleb's hand ranged from okay to dodgy, but he managed to win every single time, because the guards were making stupid moves, and reading all of Caleb's emotions wrong. It was like music really, weaving in between different facial muscles to decipher which one was more important, and bringing to light the instruments that were hiding in the back. His means to manipulation were so much more dangerous.

"Read 'em and weep," the brown fox smirked. Damn. Royal Flush. "I believe you owe us one set of Extreme Gear, and fifty bronze."

"One more game," Sleuth persisted. "All or nothing."

The brown fox tilted his head, just so that his irises were visible through his bangs. He was looking for Tails' permission. The kit nodded and Caleb sighed, grabbing their cards and shuffling them, as a professional dealer would, "Once more."

The fox's hands were dexterous, as if he had been playing cards his whole life. Who knew? Maybe he had. He split the deck evenly, cut it and shuffled it once more before dealing them, giving the guards a bit of a smirk too. They were playing on the ground and the rest of them were just standing around them, making them feel like a circus show. Tails and Silver had sat down too, flanking Caleb's left and right side while examining his cards. Repeatedly he put down cards that Tails could see Silver giving disapproving looks of, but so far Caleb had been burning through his opponents mercilessly.

Tails didn't know much about Poker. His inability to hide his emotions made him terrible at games like those, so he stuck with games where his brain would come in handy, like Go Fish and possibly Black Jack. He didn't like to play Snap with Sonic, because having lightning fast reflexes kind of beat the purpose of the game. Bullshit happened to be Caleb's favourite game, because he could read people well enough even without using his empathy powers. The only ones he could actually play properly with were Shadow and Storm, if you could believe it.

He had to judge by the expressions that Wave and Silver were making if Caleb's moves were good or bad. The primate and the dog kept giving each other shifty glances, but they generally looked displeased with what was happening. The empath set out three cards before them, a smile curving his lips.

"Call?"**(ii)**

"Call," the both of them replied.

They took turns throwing the rings in, and Caleb leaned back and cracked his neck. Was he feigning this confidence? Tails couldn't tell.

"Here's the flop." He turned over the first three cards, nine spades, eight spades and eight clubs.

From his vantage point, Tails saw that Caleb was harbouring nine spades and eight clubs as well. From what he knew of poker, doubles were great, but they weren't the best. Caleb's face still looked just on the edge of happy, and continued to throw in his rings,  
>"I raise."<p>

Both of them followed suit, and he could see Sleuth was having trouble hiding his smirk. Caleb looked down a second and pushed his bangs away, wondering what to do. Both of them raised as well, throwing in the Extreme Gear. Tails' blood still boiled over the fact that they had to manipulate them into giving their boards back but he was actually very interested in what was happening.

"There's the turn." Caleb flipped over the second card. A queen. It didn't mean much to Caleb, but apparently, it did to Simon, because he looked pretty happy. Caleb's eyebrows knitted together before he scratched the side of his temple. The atmosphere was thick and hot; so much so that you could slice it clean through with a butter knife. On the next turn, the primate looked at the fox with some ounce of fear, and threw down his hand.

"I fold."

Caleb didn't smile, but examined his cards. Simon had had six and seven of spades. Ultimately better than Caleb's hand. Tails might have been getting it wrong though, so he kept his thoughts in a grey area. Slowly, he saw the corner of the fox's mouth curve up in a smile, but it didn't matter of Sleuth folded or not, because that would be ultimately giving up the game.

"All in. Do you want to see the river?" he murmured, eyes locking confidently with Sleuth's beady ones. He gulped and nodded.

Caleb flipped the last card over, his face passive, but his lips curved smugly as Sleuth's hand shook, sweat beading down his forehead.

"Check?" the brown fox smirks.

"Check."

They gave up their cards. Caleb had two doubles, but Sleuth only had one spade and an ace. "I win," Caleb twittered, one hand over the money.

"This is bull!" Simon growled, fisting his hands in the empath's flannel. "Tell me how is it that you managed to beat us seven times in a row?"

"Aww, did I push your buttons?" Caleb narrowed his eyes, his cheeky smile turning down in a frown. "Take it like a man and accept the consequences."

"Show me what you did, Runt, or _you're_ going to be the one facing the consequences."

The brown fox shrugged his shoulders and picked up five of the cards, flicking them so effectively that they fanned out in his hand, "The trick is in the way you hold your cards. Come a little closer."

Simon let go of his flannel and came a little closer, trying to see the way Caleb was handling his cards. Once his nose was a hand's length away from the card fan the currently-brown-haired-fox reared back his other hand, and with a surprising amount of strength, rocketed his fist into the gorilla's face. There was a sickeningly gross snap of cartilage and a howl of pain.

"_Fuck, _you little son-of-a-bitch!"

The brown fox's card fingers flicked out, the paper flying out in a flurry of red, black and white like a classic gothic circus trick.

"Silver!"

The hedgehog's hands were enveloped in bright blue light, and the Extreme Gear flew to Jet and Tails while Caleb darted past the primate and picked up his winnings, shoving them into his jacket when he shivered. There was a gun pressed into the back of his neck. Everyone stiffened.

"Give it up."

Sleuth couldn't see, but Tails watched as Caleb's eyes closed and the guard cringed, before the dog's eyes widened and his hands dropped his gun, coming up to support his aching head, now looking like it was exploding with pain. **(iii)** Tails was confused, but Silver seemed to know what was going on. Caleb's eyes snapped open and his hand darted out to snatch the firearm, pointing it at the gorilla that had recently regained his footing.

"I _know_ you, now that I think about it," the gorilla said, voice low and threatening.

"What?" Caleb seemed honestly confused, so the rest of them stopped running.

"Gabe… right? MarDean has been spreading rumours about you. Plus, a wolf named Mytho had been looking around for a 'Gabriel', kid with connections to the underground."

Caleb paled, his eyes going wide as his grip on the gun shook.

"M-Mytho…?"

This look was something new; a level of distress Tails had never seen on Caleb before. He honestly looked scared, much younger than his years, like a child that had been beaten and shoved into a corner. He'd never seen such fear in his normally guarded eyes.

"They also say a certain 'Winchester' has been running around with your name. Claudel's got a pretty price over his head."

The brown fox released a hard breath through his nose before he started walking backwards. The rest of the group started to exit as well until the guard brought out his gun. Caleb didn't hesitate, the safety came away and he fired, shooting the gun out of his hand before the brown fox raised a hand. The primate's face screwed up in pain before he was screaming in agony, crumpling to the ground and clutching his head.

"Well then you should know that Winchester died a long time ago," Caleb murmured, shaking his head as he walked away. "C'mon before someone finds 'em. Don't worry. He's probably not going to remember what happened."

* * *

><p><em>Runaway <em>by Artist Vs Poet

* * *

><p>The celebration of this race was a lot more joyous, apart from the awkwardness between Blaze and Silver, there was pizza and beer (soda for those that were under aged) all around and they were watching Tails and Wave's epic race on their huge plasma TV, passing around a family sized packet of Maltesers. No one that was present for the post-game fiasco mentioned it, but Wave did ask Silver and Tails if they knew who this 'Mytho' was. Tails wanted to know, but guessed that finding out about Mytho was going to be even harder than finding information about Arly. He had a laptop in front of him, looking for information now. All he'd managed to find were multiple Facebook profiles, but asking Snippy if he had a Facebook profile would be the epitome of idiocy. Caleb came rushing up to them, still towelling off his hair before looking up from his phone and saying, "Switch to channel 43."<p>

Amy, who was the closest to the remote, did as was asked and they were surprised to realise they were looking up a gossip show. There was a lilac cat commenting, speaking to Omochao about today's events.

_"So, there have been rumours floating around about Soleanna's most controversial racer. Do you have an opinion on what's happening between Tails Prower and Wave of Babylon?"_

Wave's jaw went slack and Tails proceeded to slouch into the couch, to bury himself further among the cushions because the black hole he wanted wasn't opening up for him. The rest of the Black Arms were hiding their snickers behind their hands, except Shadow because he was cool like that.

_"I saw nothing but camaraderie between them before, but _now_ I'm not so sure, not after these photos were released."_

"Oh man, if you guys made it onto a gossip show you're pretty much screwed in the ways of privacy," Knuckles smirked.

"Go eat a shoe," Tails replied immaturely.

"I will _not_ eat a shoe."

"What photos?" the purple swallow asked, as if the people on the television were going to answer her.

"Please change the channel," Tails murmured meekly, but it seemed that his request was going to be ignored. He slipped off the couch and tried to steal it back from Amy, but the hedgehog refused to let it go.

_"As you probably know, folks. Photos were released earlier this evening of Tails and Wave, entering and leaving the Egg Dome. They came together with a bunch of fellow competitors, most from the Black Arms. Miles is sporting a nifty looking red chequered flannel, which seems to have come from _Hot Topic, _in case you're interested."_

The report later switched to Omochao, _"But photographed _leaving_ the Egg Dome, it seems that Wave is _wearing_ Tails' flannel as they converse with lively expressions between them."_

_"We also have anonymous reports from fellow racers that they were interacting in the Player's Workshop. A leaked _recorded_ conversation reveals that the two were _flirting("Liars!") _before their race began. Let's have a listen…"_

_"_Solaris, Amy, change the channel!" Tails growled, trying to snatch the remote out of Amy's grip. His cheeks were already aflame, and his friends weren't making the situation any easier.

_**"Look at all these competitors."**_

He was horrified to hear their voices on the television.

_**"What?"**_

_**"They're soaking wet."**_

_**"Here."**_

There was a brief folding of fabric noise.

_**"You sure?"**_

_**"Yeah, you'll need it more than I will."**_

_"Racers for sixty-three!"_

_"__**That's us. Want a kiss for good luck?"**_

Wave buried her head in her hands, wishing that she hadn't said that.

_**"No!"**_

_**"Whatever. Good luck."**_

The announcers shared in a brief, 'Aww' moment before stopping the recording. Jet slapped Wave on the back and got sent to the ground by her sneaker.

_"It looks like Tails has a little crush on Wave. That answer's Soleanna's gossip mongers about Prower's love life."_

Tails tried to smother his face in a pillow, face aflame.

"You two are so cute!" Sonic cooed, trying to snatch the pillow away from Tails' face.

"S'not true! Shut up, Sonic," Tails growled as he continued his search on the computer. He looked back to Caleb who was looking between the sodas and the alcohol. "I hate you… so much."

"Love you too, Muffin," he replied dismissively. It seemed all the fear from earlier on had dissipated, leaving him a little melancholy and distant. "Gods, you hogs have drunk all the lemonade. I'm going to get some more." He started his trek to the third floor.

They continued watching the rest of the replays of the Grand Prix, taking special note of Jet's race and how he performed his 'Meteor Dive'. No one they knew had lost the competition, but that was more bad news, because they'd have a very high chance of facing off against more people they knew in the next race.

"What are you lookin' up, Tails?" Rouge asked him, from her vantage point next to Shadow.

"There was a guy outside of the Egg Dome, that provoked an interesting reaction out of Caleb," he explained, looking around for a promising link.

"What did he say?" she murmured, stepping over Knuckles and Cream who were sitting on the floor. Silver moved over on the couch so that she could sit between him and Tails.

"He said someone called 'Mytho' was lookin' for him."

Rouge's eyes widened and she looked at the balcony and then at the stairs, seeing Caleb walking down with a bottle of lemonade. She looked at Tails with panicked eyes before grabbing his laptop and slamming it down. When he looked at her with confusion she shook her head, "You don't want to get into that. You _definitely_ don't want to get into that."

Once the news and sport replays finished up Blaze, Marine, Rouge and Cream decided to go home, leaving the residents of the Black Arms with a zombie movie marathon. This time, when he went to sleep, there was happiness in his chest that wasn't there the first time he'd gone to bed after the race.

* * *

><p><em>Wonderful Life (Cover) <em>by Heaven Rain

* * *

><p>Silver placed a piece of newspaper on Caleb's chest while he was asleep, levitating a snail onto it before Tails grabbed a feather and lightly tickled Caleb's nose. He refused to stir at first but when he did his blue eyes opened into thin slits, registering the animal on his chest before he abruptly fell off the couch.<p>

The rest of Black Arms were in hysterics, you know, except for Shadow, but he was hiding a snicker behind his hand.

_"You. Fucking. Pricks!" _he snarled at them, before he bent over and started laughing too. And it wasn't the horrible, fake laughter either. It was real, and it was genuine. He had to wipe away tears when he was finished. "Man, I hate snails. I hate snails. I hate you. What _possessed _you to do that?"

"Couch prank," Silver answered. "Our initiation." **(iv)**

When the information finally sunk in Caleb rocked back from his position on the floor, all of his weight distributed on the heels of his hands, looking at the snail before he rocked forward and wiped something from his eyes.

"Oh Argus," Amy murmured. "Please don't tell me you're actually crying."

"Oh no," there was laughter in Caleb's tone, but his eyes actually did look watery, "you know, there's probably some dirt, a twig, some eye contact in there," he joked, wiping the rest of it away and gifting them with a huge smile, "This is the _nicest_ thing that anyone's done for me. _Thank you. _Really."

"Even if we just got your most irrational fear and shoved it in your face?"

He laughed, "Yes. Despite that."

Sonic was the one that interjected next, "We should have thanked you after you helped to break Blaze out of the Violet Manor, after you helped the gang war and the aloe heist. We will not lie, the info about who your father was threw us off, but we've seen past that now."

"I will admit," Caleb replied, "I haven't lived with anyone else for a long time, but I am so glad that Tails dragged me back here."

"Alright!" Silver declared, "First act of initiation; we're teaching you how to read Extreme Gear!"

"What?" the brown fox asked in horror. As they already knew, Extreme Gear happened to be Caleb's _rational _fear, so it took them a while to drag him off the floor and into the garage.

* * *

><p><em>Watercolour<em> by Pendulum

* * *

><p>Rouge, Shadow and Leilani were standing at the edge of the Black Arms parking lot, Chris was sitting down on the ground near their feet tinkering with Shadow's gear and their own gears, side by side. Tails rather liked Leilani's Extreme Gear. It wasn't her own, just a rental that she had been borrowing. It was a hybrid, a bike-type gear that was designed for speed instead of power. Silver was running around and trying to get Caleb to stay still enough to get him on an Extreme Gear. Caleb was also trying to steal his phone back from Silver, who said he wouldn't give it back until the empath got on a board.<p>

"No way!"

"Riding Extreme Gear is an essential way of life!"

"_Sex_ is an essential part of life. I don't see _you_ doing anything about it!"

Tails was now standing next to them, watching the two while holding Caleb's beginner's gear. According to information he had received from Rouge and Leilani, he had been a speed type with heavy emphasis on trick, curving ability and acceleration. They were still trying to explain exactly _why_ Caleb didn't want to ride Extreme Gear. Well, Rouge was reluctant to say. Whenever Leilani tried, the bat interrupted her.

"Rouge. Just let her say it," Shadow rolled his eyes, watching as Caleb ducked the white hedgehog again. "Someone's gonna find out sooner or later, and I'd rather it not be some kind of emotional blow out like last time."

"Alright," Rouge groaned. "But if he finds out, it's all your fault."

"Has he told you about Arly yet?" Leilani asked Tails. It was kind of awkward because Tails hadn't even been officially introduced yet, but he'd pieced everything together, so he had enough information to make decent conversation with her. She scared him to be completely honest. But he knew he would have been afraid of her even _without_ the scary reputation.

"No. But I think I know enough."

"Extremely important to him. BFFs. I don't know. They seemed like a lot more to me." She hissed through her teeth, brown eyes opening slowly, "She died in an Extreme Gear crash."

Shit.

That explained a_ lot._

_"When I was competent on a board. I haven't ridden a board in years. What the _fuck _is so funny about this situation?"_

_"You're riding an Extreme Gear, with an expired license. Do you not see the hilarity? You're doing something illegal on something illegal!It's funny, man." A pause. "PTSD?"_

_"A little. More non-existent now. But… Extreme Gear ain't like riding a bike for me."_

_"So you already know?"_

_"It isn't exactly press 'x' to jump and 'o' to accelerate. I keep reminding myself this isn't a game, and I could seriously get hurt. More so than usual anyway…"_

_"What?"_

_"Nothing."_ **(v)**

"Silver!" Tails called, stopping the white hedgehog in his tracks, "Stop it."

"No!" Rouge said, "Don't stop it now, or else it will be obvious what we've just done."

"But you can't _force_ him into this activity if he has a reason like that," Tails argued, watching their expressions vary from uncaring to concerned.

"It's be a good way for him to get over her," Rouge admitted, shrugging.

"Technically he _has_ gotten over her, in the traditional sense," Shadow admitted.

"No he hasn't," the bat countered, narrowing her eyes. "He hates her, so goddamn much he wants to spit on her grave."

"Been there," Leilani shrugged to Tails' scandalised look, "done that."

"When?" Shadow and Rouge asked at the same time.

"Valentine's Day."

"You took him to her _grave_ on Valentine's Day?"

"He wanted to go."

"More like you wanted to see De Marco."

"Shut _up_, Shadow."

The situation was rapidly getting into something that Tails couldn't understand, so he instead turned back to the chase between Caleb and Silver. Those two had become awfully close lately, but it wasn't because of anything romantic happening between them. (Caleb had once offhandedly commented that Silver was not his type) Tails knew, because news circulated like water around the Black Arms. Silver needed someone to distract him free Blaze's rejection, and Snippy was the biggest distraction Silver had. Because of Silver's heartbreak, they'd become really good friends… Even if it didn't seem that way at first. How sad.

"Careful, there's a mini-crater there." **(vi)**

"Like I'm gonna fall for-oof!"

Caleb snatched his phone back, kicking Silver in the ribs for good measure while he was on the ground before turning it on, "Geez, I'm on call for the Delivery Service, you jerk and…" he trailed off, furiously clicking the buttons on his phone as he stepped back and started sprinting towards Tails. "That gear? Show me how to turn it on. What's the password? What type is it?"

Tails was flustered, his words coming out a jumbled mess until Caleb gripped his shoulders, "Hurry up!"

"The password is Black Arms! The pressure pads are accelerators, and there's a break on the tail end of the board. It's a speed type and excels in curving. What's wrong?"

Caleb snatched the gear, typing the password into control panel while walking over to Leilani as she picked up her own gear. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

His response was solemn and quick, "The orphanage is on fire."

* * *

><p><em>Everything Goes Dark <em>by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>Caleb <em>could<em> ride Extreme Gear apparently, and pretty _well_ in fact. It was one of the things that didn't require concentration. If he was focusing too much attention on it, he'd crash and burn, but he was so focused on getting to the orphanage that he just didn't care how he did, and he couldn't run there, the distance was much too far. He could swerve between alleys with ease, use the most unexpected surfaces to accumulate air and moved at incredible speeds. He could have entered into the Grand Prix, if it wasn't for the fact that the moment he concentrated on actually _riding_ the board he was lost.

He arrived on the scene with Silver and Leilani in tow, the rest of them had been told to stay behind. They were pretty late, the building had been burnt to the ground and the ambulances had arrived already. Tails almost gagged when they arrived and Caleb dived into the crowd of paramedics, care workers and children. They were actually carting bodies away. Small little bodies, no bigger than potato sacks. He desperately hoped that Lottie wasn't among those unfortunate children.

"What should we do?" Tails asked Silver.

"I'm not sure. I just came for emotional support, I guess."

Minutes into the fray and Caleb emerged from the mess with a sobbing little girl in tow, holding an ashen little non-Mobian rabbit. That was odd. Last time she had seen the bunny rabbit, it had almost been completely white. She had brown fur, and a darker brown hair with brown eyes as well that were so light they were almost gold. It was hard to believe such a delicate, beautiful little girl could be related to their resident asshole Caleb, but she was, and she was clinging to her brother with all the strength she had.

He was seeing so many new sides of Caleb recently, a scared little boy, a guy that _actually_ smiled and laughed properly, and now a caring big brother that was scooping his sister into his arms, rabbit in her hands while she leant her forehead into her neck. He walked over to them, hushing her sniffles as she latched tighter onto his neck.

"There's been ten deaths, most of 'em were her friends, and most of the kids have nowhere to go, they're relying on the care workers that can take them in, but if they don't have room then they're going to be sent to a homeless shelter, which is _so_dangerous for children. The Red Crane Charities' closest branch is in Crisis City, but we all know that's even _more_ dangerous." He paused a second, before he looked to Leilani, "Do you think there'd be room in your apartment?"

Tails' fur stood up when he heard Lottie's ear-piercing scream, "_No! _No. No. _No! _I don't wanna go! I wanna stay with Callie!"

"Caleb," Leilani furrowed her eyebrows, "she's ophidiophobic, you insensitive git."

"What does that mean?" Silver whispered to Tails.

"It means she's afraid of snakes," Tails answered.

"Why would that matter?"

"Because Leilani owns a pet snake," Caleb answered them, alerting them to how loud they were speaking. **(vii) **"I really don't know what to do. I could have her go to New Town's Orphanage once I get the forms completed for the transfer, but that could take a few days."

"She can live with us for a bit," Tails offered before he'd even thought it through, really.

Caleb's vision snapped to the young fox, "Are you really okay with that?"

"Well…" He didn't know. Maybe his good personality was getting the better of him. The Freedom Fighters weren't a good place to take care of children, and neither was the Mystic Ruin's Garden Center. Oh wait… there was always Diamond Dust Chapel. But then again, Lottie had been raised in the Church of Solaris. Sure, their priest would accept her, but would the rest of the Argus followers? Better play it safe.

"Yeah. We took you in, might as well take her in too. I mean. You said it was only temporary and all."

"I already feel like a burden," Caleb admitted truthfully.

"Well, it'd be more beneficial really. I mean, Amy and Cream need someone to be girly with, and they absolutely love children. Amy still volunteers at the Crisis City Orphanage remember? You'll be fine."

Caleb still looked conflicted, "Call the rest of them and make sure it's okay."

After a quick agreement, they realised that Silver had gone missing.

"Where's the White One?"

"He's speaking to some of the workers."

He watched Caleb bounce her girl in his arms, raising his other hand to wipe away her tears. "Lott. You're going to be staying at Tails' place for a few days okay? Wanna say hi?"

She raised her head, blinking watery wide eyes, "Hi..." she said meekly.

"Hi!" he grinned cheerily.

She raised an eyebrow and then the rest of his head before realising, "You're Fox-trot."

"Um... yeah, that's me."

She sniffed, but it looked like she was distracted from what had just happened, "Callie thinks what you and Wave did was absolutely brilliant."

Caleb's eyes widened and he made a show of covering her mouth with his hand, something that she giggled over as she tried to fight his limb away with her spare hand. She was so adorable. How had either of them come from a murderer?

"Callie?"

"Yeah?"

"I think Daddy found me."

Caleb's smile slowly turned into a frown, breathing deeply before hugging her tighter and kissing her forehead. The sign of affection looked like it was more for his benefit than hers. His grip was shaking again, "Leilani, can you hold her?"

The human took the child and her rabbit, "You're probably coming on my Gear, kid."

"Why can't I go with Callie?"

"Oh my gosh, are you saying you don't like me anymore?"

"No!" she honestly looked upset that she might have hurt Leilani's feelings. "I love you too!"

"Nah, you're coming with me, Lottie, because your brother's naughty and _drove without a license,_" the GUN agent smirked. Caleb gave her the finger while the little girl wasn't looking.

"Guys…" Silver appeared before them, looking more solemn than ever, "they think they know who the culprit for burning down the orphanage was."

"Who?"

"… Blaze."

* * *

><p><em>Never Grow Up <em>by Taylor Swift

* * *

><p>Distracting a six-year-old from something this traumatic was proving to be incredibly difficult, but Amy tried her best. She'd drawn pictures, played dress-ups and baked cup cakes and for a few hours, it seemed that Lottie had forgotten about the entire experience. Caleb had observed the entire ordeal, while speaking to Leilani over the phone because her team was temporarily placed in charge of finding the culprit. Blaze had been <em>seen<em> before the orphanage set fire, but Caleb didn't really think that she could do such a thing.

The empath scratched his head as he, Lottie, Silver, Amy and Tails made a little camp in the living room, trying to make the situation as fun as they could for her. Whenever she had the chance, she'd still latch onto Caleb's arm so tight that it physically hurt, her rabbit in the other hand (which had been cleaned and returned to its rightful white colour).

"Callie, I didn't bring my message book, I need to write down the story that Mommy told us," she murmured, pointing to Caleb's sketchbook. He sighed. This was _so _not the time. He was tired and he would have to wake up early to travel to New Town, get the forms, and get to work quick enough.

"Are you sure, Lottie? That's a depressing story and I don't want to-"

"No!" she insisted, "She said we can _never_ forget the story!"

"Ugh, fine."

Apparently, he looked as tired as he felt because Tails offered to write the story down while he dictated. Sonic appeared while the yellow fox was looking around for a pen with a fresh batch of cookies from Cream's bakery, just for Lottie. He sat down next to Amy and listened as Caleb recited the story.

_"Once upon a time, there was a Black Widow who cried and cried because she was blind, and she could not find a husband because of it. Along came a spider who fell in love with her. He asked her to marry him, but she said she would only do it if he gave her his eyes. He did so immediately, and once she could see; she killed him and ate his heart."_

"That is _such_ a morbid story," Amy said with distaste. "Why are you telling that to her?"

"My mom drilled it into us when we were little," Caleb shrugged, thanking Tails and closing the sketchbook. "She said that we should_never_ forget it. It's something about love being blind. I'm not really sure how her mind worked half the time."

"Good, now that you've done that, can you sing the song that mommy used to?" she asked, tugging on his sleeve. The simple fact was, Lottie was adorable, and she had Caleb wrapped around her fingers. But…

"I don't have a guitar."

"I do," Sonic offered, fetching it, lickety-split.

"It isn't something depressing, is it?" Amy asked with worry etched into her forehead.

"It's reminiscent," he answered, strumming the chords gently. "I don't really know any chords outside of this song. I'm rusty, and generally bad at singing, so leave me alone about it. Lottie, you have to _promise_ me that if I sing this song, you're going to go to sleep."

"Okay!"

Caleb's singing voice wasn't bad, he knew he had a low vocal range and wasn't very versatile in the ways of vocal stylisation, plus he tended to sing a little off-key as well, especially after so long without practice. But he had enough musical prowess to pick up the chords easily enough. They weren't the same as piano keys, of which he was so much more familiar with, but the guitar brought a soothing melody into a world that was now so much scarier than it had been twenty-four hours ago.

_"Your little hand's wrapped around my finger,  
>And it's so quiet in the world tonight.<br>Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming,  
>So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light.<em>

_"To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret.  
>I'd give all I have, Honey,<br>If you could stay like that._

_"Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little.<br>Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple.<em>

_"I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart,  
>And no one will desert you.<br>Just try to never grow up, never grow up._

_"You're in the car on the way to the movies,  
>And you're mortified your mom's dropping you off.<br>At 14 there's just so much you can't do,  
>And you can't wait to move out someday and call your own shots.<em>

_"But don't make her drop you off around the block.  
>Remember that she's getting older too.<br>And don't lose the way that you dance around in your pj's getting ready for school._

_"Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little.<br>Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple.<em>

_"No one's ever burned you, nothing's ever left you scarred,  
>And even though you want to, just try to never grow up.<em>

_"Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room.  
>Memorize what it sounded like when your mom gets home.<br>Remember the footsteps, remember the words said,  
>And all your little brother's favourite songs.<br>I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone._

_"So_ _here I am in my new apartment,_  
><em>In a big city, they just dropped me off.<em>  
><em>It's so much colder that I thought it would be,<em>  
><em>So I tuck myself in and turn my night light on.<em>

_"Wish I'd never grown up._  
><em>I wish I'd never grown up.<em>

_"Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up.  
>I could still be little.<br>Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up.  
>It could still be simple.<em>

_"Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little.<br>Oh darling, don't you ever grow up.  
>Don't you ever grow up, it could stay this simple.<em>

_"Won't let nobody hurt you,  
>Won't let no one break your heart.<br>And even though you want to, please try to never grow up._

_"Oh, don't you ever grow up  
>Oh, never grow up, just never grow up."<em>

_That night we all had dreams of the firefly-filled days of the past, those blissfully happy times, ten years ago. And we wondered… Would it ever be like that again?_

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**Blaze visiting her father in hospital.**

* * *

><p><em>"Get out."<em>

Blaze was so abruptly shocked by the comment. It came at her like a sack of bricks to the gut, winding her, _hurting_ her so badly that the poison pricks behind her golden eyes became hot and heady, overflowing with liquid that was her sadness and regret.

"Father…"

"Love passes so quickly from this world."

_"I love you."_

Blaze's hands clenched, her nerves turned to steel as she pulled up the chair beside her father's bed, sitting down without invitation. For the first time since she'd started passing his room in Castle Town Hospital (because he'd been moved. There were just too many people in New Town dying) she'd sat down without his consent, without his authority, and stared him right in the eyes. She didn't see hatred in her father's eyes; she saw worry, regret, and anguish.

"I don't want you to let it go too."

Her father leant over, body stiffening and so much heavier than it had been two months ago… when he'd been able to feel his legs, "I'm serious, my Kitten, if they find out you are mutant here, I won't be able to protect you."

There's an unspoken lightness, a weight lifted from her heavy heart when she hears those words. Her father still loves her. This was one of those wounds that time could heal.

"I'm… perfectly capable of protecting myself, Father."

"I loved your mother, Darling, and I love you. To pieces. More than you could ever comprehend, my Princess." His hand reached out to stroke the side of her face, and the hot liquid slid down her cheeks, brushed away by bigger, but weaker hands. Her hands, so thin and delicate, were stronger than her father's own, which were sickly and damaged undeservingly, "But the road ahead for you is dangerous, and even if you can protect yourself, one never charges into battle without armour and comrades. I'm sorry to say, my Princess, that you are an unwilling pawn in a major political battle, that has already escalated into violence and you're going to need to learn who your friends are and who is not. Collect your weapons, your intellect, and sever the ties you will not need."

For some reason, his last sentence strikes her heart, like a rapier has been lunged right through her heart, "What… what do you mean?"

"From this moment on, Kitten, we will not meet. We cannot meet. It's far too dangerous, for me and for you. News of your blood is spreading, and it's only a matter of time before it becomes public knowledge."

"No…" she shook her head in disbelief, and he tried to wipe the tears away but they wouldn't, "No!"

"I'm sorry, Blaze. I really wish it couldn't be this way, but I'm going to have to entrust you to Silver as your knight, to protect you from your troubles until they come knocking at your door."

The lavender cat released a dry sob, "Silver is not with me anymore."

"But… you're in love with him… aren't you?"

She moved her head in a confused manner, trying to wipe her tears over the back of her gloves.

"Kitten, my words of advice from before? 'Love passes so quickly from this world.' It applies to you as well, because we are alike that way. We wait and wait until the perfect opportunity, and then it never arrives and we regret. We regret and regret and regret."

"Father…" she sighs, amber eyes misting over.

"I regret not being strong enough to strand up to your mother during Eggman's corruption of her mind, I regret not telling her that your brother was still part of the family when she disowned him, and I regret giving into my fear and anger when Tails Doll appeared in our house and took her away from me. So the best advice in the world I can give you, my princess, is Carpe Diem."

She shook her head, "What does that mean?"

"It means 'Seize the day'. We live in a world, where there is hardly time for second chances. I need you to understand that."

"I know."

"Yes, and I need you to give this final cash grant to the Castle Town Orphanage. Silver's old home is still in dire help, I think."

She reached forward and took her father's hand, nodding and kissing his knuckles, standing up and kissing his forehead as well. "Understood."

"You always did, my beautiful girl," he smiled, it was weak and small, but a smile nonetheless. "Remember what I've taught you, and give your brother my love. Be careful and live for all of us." _Me, your mother and your brother._

"I will. I promise I will. I love you."

"Goodbye, and good luck."

* * *

><p>When she'd reached the orphanage, she'd encountered a shady character with three tanks of gasoline. She'd pocketed the money and went up to him; he was bringing out a lighter.<p>

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Ah," he sneered, "right on time, Duchess."

His lighter fell into the grass by the orphanage walls, immediately setting it aflame, "Why did you _do_ that?"

"There are higher powers as work, Lady Violet. Here's a warning. Stay out of the game and you won't get hurt. Pass this information onto every member of the Black Arms; we're watching them, and everyone close to them. Prower better watch his back, Sonic can't play hero forever, your friendly little GUN agents better do a better job with their stealth, and your fugitive… haha.

"Tell him his father's lookin' for him, and it's only a matter of time. He'll go after his little girl first, burn her to a crisp, and then he'll slit his son's throat. And as for you? Well… you're already going to be accused of murder…" he slinked away, shadow's enveloping this mysterious character, "After all, you _are_ a fire elemental. Cheers, Lady Violet." His disappeared in a wisp of black smoke. And she did the only thing she could think of; she ran and ran and ran.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes: <strong>I'm not really depressed, it's just that things in this story are getting edgier and scarier and I'm kind of watching too many scary things for my own good. Do you have the chills? I'm getting the chills.

If I haven't replied to your review, I'm sorry. Honestly. I am just honestly confused as to who I answered, and who I didn't.

**(i) **That's Sleuth Dog and Sergeant Simian if you hadn't figured it out.

**(ii)** Poker terminology:-

**Call,** to match or raise a bet.

**Flop, **the first three cards turned face-up.

**Raise, **increasing the bet.

**Turn, **the fourth card turned face-up.

**Fold, **to discard your hand and give up the interest in the kitty.

**Check, **to continue without betting or performing another notable action.

**River, **the fifth and final card turned face-up.

**(iii) **If you don't know what Caleb's doing, refer to Chapter 19: Tick-Tock Rhythm, and read the last section under music section _Tell Me _by Story Of The Year.

**(iv) **What Silver's speaking about, refer to Chapter 33: I Can Save You, under the section _Black Cat_ by Mayday Parade.

**(v) **Conversation from Chapter 6: I Don't Wanna Fee Your Pain, under the section _So Much I Never Said_ by Artist vs. Poet.

**(vi) **See Chapter 11: Not Worth It Anymore, under the section _Hero_ by Skillet.

**(vii) **See Chapter 18: Beautiful Dangerous, under the section _Blow_ by Ke$ha.

The possible drabbles for this update are:-

**1. **Silver's relationship with the Crisis City Police Department. (crime)

**2. **Can I say, Strip Poker? (humour)

**3. **Silver and Caleb are finding it harder and harder to get through the Black Market. (suspense)

Review!~

ღ


	41. Dim The Lights

**domi|note: **We have a lot of bad influences in the Black Arms. In a real life note, it seems that the weather has decided to be a moody bitch. I just finished Assassin's Creed: Revelations and let me just say that was the absolute _worst _mindfuck I have ever received. I loved it and now I can't _wait_ for the new game. I've gotta read up on the American Revolution now.

Filler chapter. Stuff happens, some stuff is resolved, and problems arise. I really _hate_ this chapter, but I kept on rewriting it over and over and it still didn't get any better and it needs to get out before the story can progress, and I don't want to write myself into a dead end.

Thanks to **Exploder**, **LordCooler**, **insidious fanboy**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **Wash in with WAVES**, **Undead009**,**DaddlerTheDalek** and **Metalshadow1909** for reviewing the last few chapters.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business. ~Wendell Phillips, attributed.<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Forty One  
>.<em>  
>"You can hide your eyes, you can dim the lights, but they are watching!"<br>…_  
>Love Stoned (Cover) <em>by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>Caleb was manipulative by nature, so Silver thought that he would be put in charge of something horrible like this, but then again, he would have come up with something more creative. No. Locking him and Blaze inside a closet was actually Jet and Sonic's idea<strong>(i)<strong>, which made sense, considering the collective amount of brain cells the both of them shared thanks to watching too much television and not enough reading books. Sonic was a horrible influence on Jet. Sonic was eighteen, Jet was only sixteen, and he was teaching him life lessons involving not watching both sides of the road and how eating mouldy pizza was perfectly okay.

He had his hand pressed to the door, trying to use his telekinesis to unlock it while Blaze sat back silently, watching him. Her voice was a soft whisper as he fiddled with the lock, "There's someone listening on the other side of the door."

The hedgehog paused a second, and then focused his power on the being beyond the door, enveloping them in a bright blue light before making a jerking motion with his hands, ramming whoever was there into the door. On the other side, Sonic made a groan of pain.

"Serves you right, you nosy git!"

Behind him, he heard a muffled laughter, his head snapped around to see that Blaze had composed herself incredibly fast. Silver frowned, leaning his back against the door and sliding down, draping his forearms over his knees. His gaze followed Blaze, who was pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how to get them out of this problem. He looked away, since the fluttering feeling in his gut wouldn't leave him and stared at the carpet between his boots.

"Listen, Silver." He looked up again, and Blaze was kneeling in front of him, crossing her arms over her knees as she locked their eyes.

"No, please," he murmured, "can I speak first?"

The violet cat sat down and nodded, grasping her arms nervously.

"What I said was on a whim and said in the heat of the moment, acting on stupid childish impulses. I didn't take into account exactly how much I valued our friendship just the way it was, and completely ruined something great by saying something I'm not sure I meant. You've been saying since we were kids that I'm naïve. This was one stupid crush that I accidentally mistook for love."

Blaze bit her lip. She looked conflicted, but she nodded, gesturing for him to continue on.

"I know this is a _huge_ ask but…" he tried to keep the weakness in his voice as he locked his golden eyes with hers, "do you think you could… forget what I said?"

The cat muttered something under her breath, but when she looked up to Silver again, she gave a small hesitant smile, "If that's what you want, Silver. I'd even go to a memory eraser to put your mind at ease."

A huge weight was lifted from his chest, and he sighed in relief, "That'd be your choice. I'm not asking you to risk your memories just to make me happy."

"I'll see one for you," she insisted, placing her hand on his knee as leverage to get up, "once I write down everything I still need to remember."

"Ah, that's right. You needed to tell me something?" he said, getting up.

"Yes," she said, her voice becoming completely serious. "I didn't burn that orphanage down."

"I knew it couldn't be you!" he replied, "You aren't the kind of person that would burn a place so special to me."

"But I know who did," her voice came out shaky, and she wrapped her hands around her elbows for support, "and I got so scared that I just ran away. Silver, I am _so_ sorry."

"Hey!" he protested, wrapping her in a hug, "It wasn't your fault. That's all I'm thankful for, but you're going to need to tell me all that you know about who burned it down."

"That's the problem," she murmured, pressing her muzzle into his shoulder, "I couldn't tell. They were wearing black clothing, covering almost all of their face, and black tendrils surrounded him so that I couldn't distinguish any details. He just _disappeared_Silver. Just like that."

He sighed, resting his chin on her head, "I'm just glad you're alright."

After a few more silent minutes they detached themselves from one another, and she pointed at the doorknob, "I have an idea."

"You always do."

"Here, you have to place your hands on mine, and…" she placed her hands on the doorknob, he complied, dazed from being around her after so long of being apart. "Just…" heat emanated from her hands, but Silver did not feel pain, "use your telekinesis to crush the inner mechanisms of the lock and it…"

_That's my Blaze. She always has a plan._

The metal broke under the heat and pressure, making the door swing open. A flabbergasted Sonic stood on the other side.

"You're paying for that," Silver cooed, shutting Sonic's open mouth. They were glad that Silver and Blaze's relationship had turned somewhat normal again, but he couldn't resist the silent flare of anger within him when he saw Blaze's flush of embarrassment when Sonic placed his hand on her shoulder. So… it was like that, wasn't it?

* * *

><p><em>Across The Universe <em>by Rufus Wainwright

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you're alright to baby sit?" Caleb asked, pulling on his jacket and washing out his cereal bowl, glancing over at his sister, who was next to Shadow on the couch.<p>

"Yeah, sure," Tails grinned, "I'm good with kids." He turned a nervous glance towards Shadow, because it looked like he was speaking to the little girl in what looked like a civil conversation.

"Okay, normally she's pretty easy to handle. If you need help, I think Leilani's on her day off so you can ask her for help if you get desperate, but don't bring Lottie with you because their snake likes to appear out of nowhere. She's allergic to egg whites and she's prone to tooth aches, so try to avoid sweet things. And the most important thing is _please_ don't get her hurt."

"Aww, that's sweet," Tails cooed, watching in satisfaction as Caleb's eye twitched.

"Haha and all that, but seriously, she has this condition called haemophilia, where if she gets a wound then her blood doesn't clot and it takes her a lot longer to heal. It's a _fortune_ to get her fixed up at the doctors."

"Is that why you became Welshscot's apprentice?" Tails asked, "So you can fix her yourself?" **(ii)**

"And to afford the supplies and medicine's that are needed to fix up blood deprivation sicknesses like anaemia." The brown fox sighed, jolted a bit when Lottie ran up to her brother and latched onto his leg.

"Is you going now?"

"'_Are' _you going now," he corrected for her.

"I don't know," she grinned, brown eyes laughing, "am I? Can I come to the store with you?"

"I'm not working at the art store today," he said to his pint-sized sister. "I'll take you on Friday. Tails is your baby sitter today."

She pouted, obviously not happy with this information. Tails tried not to look insulted. She was just a kid after all, "Last time Lani was my baby sitter she tried to _sit_ on me."

He rolled his eyes, "Are you going to _sit_ on Lottie, Tails?"

"Maybe if she _misbehaves,_" Tails teased, making her squeal and hide behind Caleb's leg. They both chuckled at the adorable display before Lottie pointed to something a little out of the ordinary. She tugged on her brother's sleeve and pushed it up.

There was an odd patch of white fur on his arm that melded into the brown, the blue-eyed empath frowned at it, "Looks like you missed a spot, Callie."

"Sh…ugar," he faltered, and Tails looked at him, impressed. So he _could_ refrain from swearing when he felt he needed to, "you're right."

"What does she mean?"

Tails watched with interest as Caleb looked back at Lottie and said, "Hey, why don't you watch TV?"

"Okay!" she grinned, "Shadow said I can play too! He said the game is edu-ma-cational."

"What's the game?" he asked with suspicion.

"'Assassin's Weed'," **(iii) **she answered, skipping off. Tails started laughing at the girl, especially her mispronunciation of the game title.

"Hey! That's rated MA!" he tried to bring her back, but ultimately failed, staring at the random patch of white fur again.

"Is it contagious?" Tails murmured in mock-shock, but regretted it instantly as a dark expression flashed across the empath's features. As soon as it was there, it was gone and he was looking down at the random white patch again.

"No… My name isn't the only thing that I had to change about myself," he murmured before straightening, as if something was weighing him down.

"Wow, does that mean you're not really a brown fox?"

"No. I'm an arctic fox, just like my mum. I've been dying my fur since I first got into GUN Academy. It was my mother's idea; she said it would be better if people didn't know who I was."

"Oh," Tails replied, "so _that's_ why your fur was still brown in the photograph you gave us?"

"Yes. I thought it was risky to continue, because my dad knew I favoured the colour brown, but there are a lot of brown foxes in Soleanna. Do you know how many white foxes there are?"

"Um… not many?"

"Correct. In fact, in my time here, I've only seen one or two other white foxes, not including my mom. So it's safer to just keep dying my fur, okay?"

Tails frowned, "You shouldn't have to dye it at all."

"I only have to do it every six months, well… maybe once again this month because my fur's going through seasonal changes again. Doesn't yours do that?"

"It's not as prominent as yours," Tails shrugged, examining his arms as well, "but I used to have the weirdest orange fur." **(iv)**

"Hmm," he made a confused noise, "I can't imagine you with orange fur."

"I'm glad," the younger fox nodded, "I never want you to."

"Whatever," the brown fox smiled, tugging his sleeve over his arm. "Good luck. For how sweet she is, she's actually the devil incarnate."

"Yeah, sure."

"Shit! Where'd she go?"

He'd gone to the bathroom, for little less than a minute and he couldn't find the six-year-old _anywhere!_ She'd just been sitting at the kitchen eating pancakes and now the food looked like she'd been blood abducted. She wasn't in anyone's rooms; she wasn't on the rooftop, the bathrooms or the closets. There was only one place to look left.

He sighed in relief when he saw Wave crouched in front of the little girl who was holding her rabbit in her arms. He jogged up to them, panting from his frantic search. He realised that if he could fly, it would have been a lot easier, "Thank Solaris, please don't do that to me, Lottie."

"Aww, is that your name?" Wave cooed before looking up to Tails. "I don't get it, what's she doing here?"

"I'm babysitting her. She's Caleb's little sister."

Wave gasped before turning back to Lottie, "How can a cutie like you be related to that douchebag?"

"What's a douchebag?" she asked, eyes widened as she tilted her head.

"Something you should never repeat," he growled at Wave. "Snippy doesn't _swear_ around her."

The swallow's eyes widened in amazement and she sprung up to her full height, "_Really?_ My, my."

"Yep! Yep! Callie never swears."

Wave snorted.

"Oh you poor, naïve child."

"What's that?"

"Nothing," Tails sighed, "why don't we go upstairs and play a game?"

"What kind of game?"

"Something G-rated."

Wave rolled her eyes, returning to her work, "I don't think we have any of those."

"PG then."

"No way! I wanna stay here with your girlfriend."

If Tails had a mouthful of water, he would have spit it out. Instead he stuttered out a response that could have been the same thing. Wave raised an eye ridge, "Wh-what makes you say that?"

"TV!" she answered cheerily, before she covered her mouth as if she was whispering something, but she wasn't really. Her rabbit looked uncomfortable in her grasp, "Plus Callie says you two are in _love!_"

"Excuse me?"

"What?"

"Well," she stated, placing her free hand on her waist, "Callie has this weird thing to feel what other people are feeling and-"

"Oh no, Lottie, he's told us that," Wave smiled sweetly, bending down to her height, "just tell us what your brother said about us?"

"He said Tails 'as a crush on you!" she cheered, "Isn't it great? You love him too right? Now you can get married and have lots of babies!"

This child was… sheltered.

Tails was blushing beet red, and Wave looked absolutely furious. He didn't even notice that Lottie ran off in the silence. He was too busy trying to figure out exactly how horrible a mutilation Caleb deserved for what he'd done without intentionally doing anything.

In his mortification he grabbed Lottie's wrist and hauled her upstairs, "Oh my goodness. Lottie, why would you do that?"

To Tails' astonishment, the six-year-old rolled her eyes, making a 'hmf' noise, speaking an octave lower than she had been all morning. It was as if she was taking off a mask, examining her nails, "I'm not really as naïve as you make me out to be, but the only way she's ever going to acknowledge you is if someone else says it."

"Excuse me?" he stated in shock. Just three seconds ago he'd been taking care of this delightful little cute thing; now she was… she was… Oh Solaris, she was the devil incarnate, just like Caleb had said. The _one_ time he didn't believe him.

"C'mon! Let's go down and make you look like you're not emasculated on a daily basis."

"Do you even know what that means?" he yelped.

"No, but I hear Callie say it every time Lani calls him a girl. If you come down with me, then I can give you some info you wanna know about Callie."

"Haha, _no way. _Your brother might be… 'interesting', but apparently, you're just as two-faced and devious as he is."

"'If you're gonna be two faced, at least make one of 'em pretty.' Whatever," she smirked, the same one that Caleb did whenever he'd gotten away with doing something bad, "you're going to have to face her sooner or later."

"And just for what you did, I'm not giving you any ice cream."

"If I don't get any, I'm going to repeat some of the words that Lani says when she thinks I'm not listening, and say that you taught them to me."

"What?" he blanched.

_Damn, this really _is_ Caleb's sister._

"Pretty please?"

She feigned innocence perfectly. Damn Heartnets and their bloody _acting _genes.

"Alright, fine."

"So, does this mean Caleb really does swear around you?"

"He tries not to."

"How'd he raise a girl like you?"

"When he realised that sheltering me wasn't going to do any good, he gave up."

"Some brother."

She smiled, laughing into her spoonful, "Mhmm. Callie is the best brother that I could ever hope for."

* * *

><p><em>Hearts A Mess <em>by Gotye

* * *

><p>"How'd it go?"<p>

"She's evil."

"Ah, I see."

"She _really_ respects you."

"Would've fooled me."

"Bullshit."

"Yeah, you're right."

Caleb was waiting so he could transfer Lottie from the Black Arms to New Town Orphanage, the papers completed. Although everyone else was reluctant to see Lottie go, Tails was the only one that had seen her true colours, thus, everyone was confused at his eagerness to see her off. Amy and Cream were saying their goodbyes and her brother was waiting by Tails' workbench.

Some shouting from across the street tore through the peace of the afternoon, alerting both foxes to the commotion. Welshscot, Hjalmar were enduring Leilani's yelling, but by the looks of Hjalmar's shaking shoulders, it was something trivial and unimportant. Tails didn't need to be an empath to figure out the situation. Leilani was holding her pet snake protectively in her arms, which seemed to be recoiling from Hjalmar. It looked like _someone _had run out of things to dissect.

Something that Welshscot said made Leilani flush angrily before she slammed her door in their faces. Caleb looked at his friend with mild confusion for a second, shuddering before turning away.

"What's wrong?" Tails murmured, confused by Caleb's reaction to the situation.

"Leilani's…" he turned back to the apartment complex, his mentor and Hjalmar already gone, the same look of confusion playing over his features. He shook his head, "My 'sight' isn't working properly today. **(v) **I'm probably just tired. Besides, Leilani's normally really hard to read anyway. Don't worry, it's nothing."

"Your words never put me at ease," his words were a monotone as he continued working on his gear, but the sentence was a distraction. He was tormented over what Lottie had said to Wave, and annoyed over the fact that she'd totally disappeared as of two hours ago.

"Oh, girl trouble. Do you want to tell me what's up?" Caleb asked, folding his arms on Tails' workbench.

Tails was about to reply snippily, something along the lines of _What would _you_ know?_ before he remembered that Caleb was apparently bisexual, and an _empath_ at that, so he'd probably realised exactly why Tails' emotional meter was flying off the charts. The fox's eyes widened when Caleb sneezed, the sound reverberated through the workshop. His voice sounded… weird.

"What's wrong with your voice? It's nasally."

"I've caught something," Caleb said dismissively. "You know, if Lottie said anything, Wave's already figured out that she's a devil in disguise," he answered sniffing, as if he head read Tails' thoughts.

"How?"

"Because she knows you can't eat chocolate, and you and Lottie were the only people here when her chocolate stash was mysteriously raided," he answered nonchalantly before turning a suspicious glance in Tails' direction. "Did she say anything?"

Tails' answer was an instant reaction, sounding far too defensive to _not_ garner any attention, "No."

Caleb raised an eyebrow, a smile curving his lips because even without the empathy he could read Tails like a well worn book. Tails looked at him with concern, watching as rubbed at his nose and sniffed again. "Alright then." Lottie appeared at the stairs, her rabbit out before her. Tails always thought it was ironic how much she loved that rabbit, considering that before the Mobians, regular foxes would hunt rabbits down. "Are you and Fritty all set to go?"

"Yep! Bye Tails," she waved sweetly, and Tails reluctantly waved back.

"How are you guys getting to New Town?"

"Cesario's car. I'll be back in about an hour."

"Take care," he replied, turning back to his gear. Normally, working with the Gear was second nature to him, but tonight the components weren't adding up and his board was suffering for it. A stray thought earned him a nasty little shock of electricity that ran up his arm before he hissed and pulled it back.

"Aww, poor baby."

Tails flinched at her voice, giving the swallow a half-hearted scowl through his pain. Her glossy blue eyes were shining with amusement, and in the dimmed light of the garage she looked mysterious and alluring, "Your concern is touching."

"I wasn't talking about you, I was referring to your board," she laughed, flirtatiously running a finger from his collar bone, up his neck and under his chin before he could even reply. She stepped behind his board and tweaked around its insides a bit, pulling out one of the wrong components and rearranging some of the items inside. Tails rubbed his hand over his face, willing the heat to go away.

"About what the little Heartnet said earlier-"

"I know," she laughed, "can you believe that? I mean, don't get me wrong, you're cute and all and I'm sure you're going to make some girl happy but… I don't even swing that way…"

Tails blanched, "What way?"

She made an inclining motion with her head and looked away. Tails gasped, choking on his breath. She swivelled around and took a picture of his expression with her phone, "Yes! And Storm said that you wouldn't believe me! Easiest twenty bucks I've ever made."

"What?" he was still choking, "You were _lying?_"

"Of course I was, Tails," she waved her hand dismissively. "What I was really going to say is; you're adorable and all, but… you're still too short for me, kid. Grow a few more inches and then well talk."

She patted him on the head as she stepped down from the workbench, making him growl with irritation and embarrassment. It also made his heart ache a little, but he tried not to show it. She still saw him as a kid, and who was he kidding? He _was_ a kid. Fourteen years old. He might have had incredible intellect, but his emotions were still instinct with his small little body.

So he smiled sarcastically at her and returned to his work, analysing her words over in her head, realising something. All he'd have to do was wait until he was a little taller. Ha, no problem. And maybe fend off any potential boyfriends until then. Oh what _joy._

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**Can I say, Strip Poker?**

* * *

><p>"'Breeches' is a <em>stupid<em> word."

Caleb's hands were a flurry across the table as he dealt and shuffled again, ready for the next game. Best out of three they'd said. Silver only wore his boots, Sonic had one of his socks, Shadow had a shirt, his trousers and one of his gloves, Wave had been kicked out before she had to take anything else off and Rouge still had a bra and her skinny jeans.

"Exactly how far are you guys going to take this before it gets really awkward?" Knuckles asked. The echidna was writing down the scores, and Tails was beside him, sitting on the kitchen counter. Amy and Blaze had ushered Cream and Marine downstairs while the older kids had their fun.

"It's getting worst," the brown fox murmured. Caleb, of course, was forbidden to play, but dealing was satisfactory enough, considering the only one close to competent with cards was Silver, and he was doing _pretty_ badly at the moment. Not as bad as Sonic though.

"Raise~" Rouge grinned, tipping in three large bronze rings into the centre of the table.

Silver bit his lip reluctantly, "Call."

"Call."

"Call." Sonic and Shadow echoed.

There was a brief moment of tension and then Caleb flipped over the turn. Ace of spades. Rouge smirked, Silver growled, Sonic played at a horrible poker face.

There were three echoed 'Checks' while Shadow contemplated what to do, face flushing red as he banged his hand on the table, snarling at Rouge who was smirking beside him.

"Get your hand _off_ my groin."

Everyone else present burst into snickers. Rouge traced her hands along Shadow's collar bone, "Was that a raise?"

"Whatever! Just _stop_ molesting me while I'm trying to play."

"Are they always like this?" Blaze murmured to Amy.

"Yeah, more sparks between them than Sonic and the toaster." **(vi)**

"I heard that!"

"Wait a second," Knuckles stopped him, "she's been doing that… throughout the _entire _game?"

Shadow banged his head on the table. Rouge smiled innocently. He turned to Caleb.

"Yeah, she has. It's really gross."

Tails and Amy started giggling again.

"Check."

"Fold."

"Fold."

"Pussies," Shadow growled at Silver and Sonic who had totally given up. They were scared of what Rouge would do to them. "Check."

Caleb turned over the river, "Three spades. Rouge wins."

He glared at Rouge before tugging at his shirt, "Alright, fine, it's coming off."

"That's not all you're getting off," she purred seductively, stopped when Caleb and Silver made twin gagging noises. She rolled her eyes and kissed Shadow's cheek.

"I should get half of that, you were cheating."

"Not on your extremely long life, Sunshine."

* * *

><p><strong>(i) It's a Technician Thing<strong> Chapter 43: All's Fair In Love And War.

**(ii) **See Chapter 14: Unsaid and Done, under the section _Written by Welshscot_.

**(iii) **Simultaneously mentioning drugs and murder, nice work Shadow.

**(iv) **Breaking the fourth wall a little. C'mon! You all knew it looked weird.

**(v) **See Chapter 33: I Can Save You, under the section _You Kill Me (In A Good Way) _by Sleeping With Sirens.

**(vi) **See **It's a Technician Thing **Chapter 2: Running Jokes, Chapter 36: Running Jokes ii and Chapter 41: Running Jokes iii.


	42. Free Fallin'

**domi|note: **I'm very proud of this chapter! It makes me giddy posting it.

Thanks to **DontCrossTheFox**, **Exploder**, **Fanfic412**, **Stonefaced610**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DaddlerTheDalek**,**Metalshadow1909**,**HalfWright**, **SS** and **Subzero Inferno** for reviewing the last chapter.

Special thanks to **LordCooler** for the reality check, and **insidious** **fanboy **for the music recommendations. I really needed them. And as always, thanks to the wonderful **Pixelated Firefly **for beta-ing.

**warning;- **Violence, of the _violent_ kind, and rude disgusting words that should not be repeated in front of old ladies prone to heart attacks. This chapter is heavily inspired by Assassins Creed.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues. You can't separate them. They're wedded. ~Henry Miller<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**._  
>Chapter Forty Two<br>._  
>"All my fear is coming home, and it's ripped out from the soul. You can't be me, I will become you tonight. I was wandering under black skies, looking at what is mine. No control left to loose."<br>…_  
>Panther <em>of Armored Core 4 Soundtrack

* * *

><p>He felt like a pair of eyeballs were sliding down his spine, like the juices rode each of the ridges in a way comparable to something out of Shadow's macabre books (he totally regretted picking it up that one time that he was bored enough to read anything). One sly second of overconfidence had snuck into his, what was normally, well guarded mind allowing him the delusion to think for three glorious hours, that he could wander into the Black Market to receive some Extreme Parts that he had ordered before the Grand Prix started. He knew he should have waited, or better yet, asked someone else to collect them for him. But he didn't want to speak to Wave right now, Shadow had gone missing as well as the rest of the Babylon Rogues, and no one else would be able to tell if the goods were damaged or not, whether they were of the right quality, or even if they were the right component. Last time Sonic had picked something up for him, he'd almost lost five thousand rings because it was faulty, if he hadn't managed to track the dealer down and steal the money back that is.<p>

Now he was ludicrously dressed up as the protagonist from The Matrix, donning a child-sized trench coat, a black baseball cap and a spare pair of Sonic's green-lensed sunglasses. Because he wasn't _completely _idiotic, he'd dragged Silver along too, partly because Silver was free, partly because he really liked looking at the cool stuff the Black Market sold, but mostly because-ages ago- the white hedgehog had promised to teach him free running, which was one of Shadow's essential conditions of acquiescence when he had agreed to teach the fox how to fight **(i)**.

So while he was trying to locate the vendor responsible for stocking his Gear, the white hedgehog was snickering at his ridiculous appearance, earning a rough elbow in the side. He hated wearing this disguise, but he understood why Amy had insisted he wear it; because there were people in the Black Market that wouldn't exactly approve of him, _murderous_ people that would resort to violence even with Silver there to protect and aid him if things went awry. Bodies whispered by him, zealous brushes rocking him from side to side as if he were a boat in a river accompanied by the illusory Fox-trot rumour tickling his ears.

The last time he had come to the Black Market, he wasn't even _'Tails'_, he was 'that-kid-that-works-for-Shadow-in-Black-Arms'. Now… Solaris… _Now_ he was Miles Prower, head mechanic of Black Arms, the finest Garage in Soleanna. Now he was Fox-trot, mutant's choice in the Soleanna Grand Prix. Now he was Tails, son of deceased General Amadeus Prower, the alleged Tails Doll. Despite everything that he'd been through, Tails had come so far from who he had been on the first day of summer vacation.

_Any_ of those titles spouted this moment in time, in this place, would have had him pinned instantly, his throat spilling blood in what would have been mere seconds. _That_ was why he needed to be careful; to make sure that no one but the Gear vendor recognised who he was.

His fingers fluttered by his pockets, the tips pressed into the familiar leather of the casing. Silver and Caleb, in their work around the Black Market dealers, utilised wallet chains. Wallet chains made sure that a pocket's stolen from were securely attached to one's trousers, so that the owner of said wallet was alerted to the theft. Smart thieves nowadays carried around a pair of aviation snips, but those that were wary would be able to tell if someone had stolen their wallet before the thief managed to cut the chain.

Tails had been checking his side constantly, something that Silver was continuously repeating _not _to do. Too much paranoia was weakness. He needed to find the right balance between wariness and confidence. At the moment, Tails' scales were tipped in the frightened favour. After all, there were brutes here that didn't even _try_ to disguise their weapons, as if they were _asking_ for a fight. He could tell that some of them would be much obliged to rid him of a heartbeat. He wasn't being vain either, he was sure that –had MarDean not been attacked by the elusive Tails Doll- he would have died in that alleyway for sure.

Silver seized the back of Tails' hat, inching it down a little more as they finally found he vendor near among a mess of weapon stalls. That did _not_ sit well with the young kit, trying hard to keep calm and speak only when he absolutely had to. Silver was on his tails, which had been strategically covered up with the trench coat, because if anyone found out that he had two he was a goner.

"How can I help you?" the vendor asked when they approached his stand.

"We've come to pick up an order issued four months ago by Shadow of Black Arms," Tails murmured, voice kept intentionally low so that no one but the vendor and Silver might hear his request.

"Ah," the vendor raised an eyebrow at them, a smile curving his lips, "I was wondering who might pick this one up." He reached behind the stalls and showed Tails the component, allowing the young fox to handle it. This was what was commonly known as a 'Trick Upgrade', but the unit itself was a container of the newest nanite technology set near the air accumulation chamber of the Extreme Gear. As soon as they felt the chamber fill up, the nanites would spread throughout the gear and slow it down so as to better pinpoint accuracy when the rider was set to release all of the pent up air and gravitational force.

"This is beautiful," Tails murmured, twisting it in his hands. At the moment it was nothing but a glowy silver container, but it was in perfect condition and he set it down with care, taking out his wallet. The two thousand rings were worth nothing in the glory of his new prize, and the vendor accepted it gratefully, seeing them off with a friendly wave.

They were halfway to the nearest exit by now, roaming through the crowds at a snails pace while Tails tried to arrange the items in his backpack to fit his newest toy. "Where do you plan to teach me?"

Silver continued walking as he thought, "There's a quiet place around Castle Town where the rooftops are elongated and weird, that'd be a nice spot. But how to get rid of any Egg Sentries that pass by?"

"Anywhere without Egg Sentries?" he asked.

"Last time I saw, the area near Lethal Highway didn't have many of those."

"But Lethal Highway is in Crisis City. Let's just stick to your first decision."

"Oka-_Hey!_"

Some idiotic barbarian shoved Tails so hard he fell onto the floor, and someone's shoe must have gotten caught on the bottom of his trench coat because it tore with a loud _shhhiiicckk_ noise that made his blood ice over. Everyone that had witnessed what happened gasped. Tails' tails were now in clear view, surrounded by a hundred deadly mercenaries, and anti-mutant armed people.

_Joy._

"It's Fox-trot!"

"_Kill_ the little shit!"

Silver's grabbed Tails' hand and hauled him up like a rag doll, narrowly avoiding an axe cleaving off his head as it embedded itself into the ground. There was a loud crack and Tails noticed that Sonic's sunglasses were now on the ground, broken, "Oh man, Sonic is going to murder me."

"Get your priorities straight!" Silver yelled over the escalating murmur of the crowd, "_They're_ gonna kill you first, and me by association, we gotta get moving!"

While they were running and shoving through the crowd, Tails slipped off the trench coat, dead weight and useless to him now, throwing the annoying baseball cap to the wind as he picked up the pace, muscles moving faster thanks to Shadow's rigorous training regime. They stopped abruptly, when a line of armed Mobians blocked their way, smirking with filthy greed as they thought about the rewards killing Fox-trot would bring them. Silver rolled his eyes when they started sprinting towards them, lifting up his hands and surrounding thier shoes with their familiar blue glow.

It only took a moment, one second of control over their feet to make the entire line trip up, slamming their grubby faces into the dirty floor. He started panicking when he felt that familiar blue glow encase him as well before flinging him onto the roof of the stalls and vendors, clinging to the clay walls of the permanent shops with fear. He felt sore; he'd smashed into a wall pretty hard. Silver didn't even need telekinesis to climb the stalls. In seconds he was already alongside Tails and locating the nearest exit, hopping from stall to stall to avoid the ravenous crowd beneath them.

"Get down brats and fight like a man!"

What did they expect of him? To fight off fifty armed men with a backpack full of nick-nacks? The best he had was a chain which could be used to choke someone.

Silver was by his side now, eyes flashing to Tails when they saw a huge gap in the stalls, beneath them twenty menacing men waited for them to fall. They only had fifty meters left, and there were Mobians climbing up the stalls to get to them. Silver stopped them by grabbing onto his sleeve, skidding to a quick halt even when Tails protested.

"I don't have time to stop bullets and carry you as well," Silver explained, his golden eyes frantic, "we're having an improv lesson."

"Improvisation?" Tails screeched, a hand flying to gesture at the men running after them.

Silver totally ignored him though, gesturing towards the gap in the stalls, and then at Tails' body. "Knees bent. Don't leap 'till the edge of the stall. All the power goes into your calves." He started sprinting again, halting bullets that whizzed by like small torpedos. They didn't have much time, the men were surrounding them. Minutes turned into seconds, and Tails was meters to the massive jump, crouching low.

He leapt. Bullets stopping centimetres from him as Silver flew ahead, panicking when Tails landed too, and the stall they'd caught crumpled beneath their combined weight. He scrabbled for the next stall, hauling himself up just as a knife sliced off some of the white tuft from the end of his tail. The exhilaration ran through his body like wildfire. He couldn't believe it.

He was having _fun._

What sweet Hell was this?

"That's it! Nice wo-_Oh shit!_" The light from the entrance blinded him, as they reflected in the guns and knives of the people that lined the edge of the Black Market. They sprinted towards them, he was simply following Silver's lead, trusting. Silver was smirking. He was either going to use telekinesis, or fight. The latter option scared the living shit out of him.

But… just as they were closing in on them, a small wall of warriors surged out from behind them and attacked the brutes at the entrance, taking them down with knives and firearms of their own. Tails was frightened for a moment, thinking that maybe they would go after them next. But no. His arms pumped, his heart slammed against his chest, his neck snapped to the side to watch one of them recover from an attack… to give him a grin and a two-fingered salute.

They paused a second, watching the conflict wind down in their favour as Silver clapped him on the back.

"Look at that," his tone was proud, _"allies."_

Now there's a serene and _maddening _thought.

* * *

><p><em>Run Rabbit Run <em>by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p>"Dammit, Silver! You're such a bad influence!" Amy rolled her angry green eyes, cocking her hips to the side as she served them up breakfast.<p>

Pancakes. How long had it been since he'd had a homemade meal, made from scratch and cooked with love? He salivated at the sight, earning a light smack on the forehead from Amy. The pink hedgehog was berating him because of what she was seeing on Shadow's laptop, conveniently opened with a tab for Youtube. The owner of said laptop was drinking his black coffee, snootily reading the morning paper.

**Fox-trot and Telekinetic Hedgehog run amuck in the Black Market- **104, 387, 203 hits.

Amy was both amused and annoyed at the both of them, carrying out her petty revenge by dangling the maple syrup just within arms reach. Silver whimpered pathetically, "It wasn't my fault. Some idiot ripped his cloak and-"

"Ah!"

Sonic had his elbow wrapped around Tails' neck, giving him a furious noogie with an expression that was like mock-anger, "So_how_are you paying me back for wrecking my sunglasses?"

"It wasn't _my_ fault!" Tails pried the blue hedgehog's grip from his neck, retaliating by stabbing Sonic's hand with a fork. "They were cheap and didn't work either, the only thing they were good for, was hiding my face."

"You're a horrid kid, you know that?" Sonic grinned, hopping into the chair next to him and thumping his cutlery against the table, "This looks delicious, Amy."

"Thanks, Sonic," she dipped her head in acknowledgement, passing him the syrup, which Silver gave an indignant shout about. "At least you acknowledge me, unlike _someone_." She kicked he heel of Shadow's chair, but he ignored her and continued reading.

"Where's Rouge today?"

There was barely a heartbeat before his response, "Working."

"Did you guys hear?" Amy said as she set down a bowl of chopped bananas, strawberries and honey, "About Mecha's murder?"

"Are you talking about the fact that he was an AI?" Shadow's husky voice interrupted the serene atmosphere. "It sounds like a stupid conspiracy, but I think it's true."

"You've no proof!" Sonic declared over the table dramatically, pointing his fork at an unimpressed Shadow's face as if it was a sword and he was trying to force the red-black hedgehog into a duel, "Whiskers is gonna make a speech about it after the third race!"

Amy rolled her eyes and forced the over excited hedgehog to sit back down in his chair, folding her arms on his head as he begrudgingly continued to eat, "What makes you say that, Shadow?"

Shadow put the newspaper down, "In one of my latest flashbacks, I see a robot, smaller than the Egg Giants, he-"

"What is this silliness?" Silver smirked, "Robot's don't have genitalia. How do you know it was a male?"

_Gods. Here we go. More sex talk at the breakfast table._

Shadow of course, decided to ignore Silver and continued to speak, "-looked very different from the other mechanics. He was speaking as if he was a real person, acted as if he really had feelings." _Then_ he turned to Silver, "Its vocals were _masculine, _White One, I'm just assuming."

"To _assume _makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'! So? Tails sounds like a girl but we still treat him like a boy."

"Hey!" the fox growled, throwing a banana piece at Silver's head.

After Amy calmed down the food fight waiting to happen, Knuckles popped into the seat next to Sonic's lazily, rubbing at a sore head while he started to cut up his pancakes with a fork. Tails smiled cheerily at him, "We haven't heard from you in a while Knuckles, what's happening?"

The echidna flashed violet eyes in his direction, and for a second, there was something menacing in this gaze that made Tails' fist clench uncomfortably. The echidna's eyes turned back to his pancakes, "Nothing much. Just… catching up with the Nocturnes, after _someone,_" he glared at Sonic, "conveniently kept their existence from me."

The blue hedgehog simply glared back, the look rather comical because there was still a chunk of pancake sticking out of his mouth. The Babylon Rogues came into the kitchen and promptly started fighting over the coffee machine. His expression turned sombre though, when Knuckles started to cradle his head with the tips of his fingers, dropping his fork, "Guys, I need to speak to you about something."

The atmosphere went cold.

"What's with the tone, Knuckle-head?" Sonic joked, trying to lighten the mood.

The red echidna straightened his back and looked past them to the Rogues, "I'm a mutant."

"No," Sonic shook his head. "No, you're not. We were both tested when we were kids, you came out negative."

"And I know why. Have you ever heard of the concept 'natural mutant'?"

"No," most of the surrounding table answered.

"It's because, up until now, no one could figure out a logical reason for their existence. And that's why now, some evil mutants can get away with crimes and not live up to the consequences, people like Mammoth Mogul and…" Knuckles lowered his voice, "Claudel Winchester."

Silver hushed him and spat, "Just continue."

"Do you know our origin? Just how we came to be?" Knuckles questioned, glancing at everyone on the table. "Eggman makes it out like we blended into the environment, just like that. Like an _infestation_. Like some kind of _disease._ But that isn't the case; Eggman knows the real reason and so does GUN."

Tails restricts himself from looking at Shadow, only to notice that Amy and Sonic's eyes flicker to him as well. Do they know?

"GUN will not explain what the true origins of mutants are because they will be found out, and then Eggman will attack their bases here in Soleanna. But some, clever and persistent people have found out the reason behind mutant existence.

"There are two kinds of mutant; mutant and natural mutant. A natural mutant cannot be detected through the DNA, but still possess powers."

"Best of both worlds," Shadow murmured, seemingly at ease, but to the skilled eye, one could tell this subject was making him increasingly uncomfortable. The tension was so thick that it could have been sliced with a knife, but it looked little more than a bunch of kids crowding around their storyteller before nap time.

"Mhmm. These natural mutants have powers closer to the earth, including elementals, various weak psychic powers, sometimes it means speaking with the souls of the deceased or… or something like, super strength," Knuckles admitted sheepishly, and in that moment, everyone understood. Knuckles had always been the strong one of out all of them, an incredible fighter, with force behind him that was nothing but admirable. There was now a tangible reason behind such a feat.

"I don't understand," Amy declared, "what's so different about where both kinds of mutant came from?"

"According to my sources, tracked mutants, the ones that you can recognise through DNA, developed through a weird project over fifty years ago. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? None of you can trace your grandparents."

It was true. Tails had never known his grandfather or grandmother, his parents never liked to talk about them. Neither had Sonic's or Knuckles'. Silver was an orphan and Shadow couldn't even remember where he was five years ago.

"Alright," Tails murmured, processing the information, but it wasn't going down well in his head. More of these explanations created the existence of more questions, "But… how does a 'natural mutant' develop?"

"Ah, this one I already knew. My father explained it to me a few months ago. Natural mutants have developed over thousands of years through the exposure to Chaos Emeralds," he declared proudly.

"I thought they were just a myth," Jet said, until Knuckles, Tails and Sonic shook their heads. Out of everyone else in the Black Arms, they were the only ones that had actually seen a Chaos Emerald before. Shadow's fingers twitched. Sonic continued chewing on his pancake.

"No… they're real. And apparently, an infinite source of energy so powerful that both the Babylonians _and_ the monsters that came during the Crimson Night were fighting over them. Both races used the same energy to create mutants; it was just that the aliens that attacked us used it in greater speed and potency. That isn't even the worst part; the majority of the mutant population that want to attack us is because _they_ know the _real_ name of the alien race that tried to wipe us out."

"And what was that?" Shadow murmured, but there was a glint in his eyes that told Tails he wasn't as oblivious as he looked.

"Black Arms."

There was a deafening silence, in which Sonic's pancake fell from his open mouth to his plate and Amy's dress fluttered because of the open window. The tap, tap of the leaky sink allows him to count the seconds they take to process this information. All eyes turned to Shadow and Silver was the one to speak.

"Shadow, you named this place, didn't you?... So, do you remember why?"

The red-black hedgehog adjourned the meeting by shaking his head and taking his coffee elsewhere to read the newspaper. Like a ninja, it seemed he'd managed to consume his pancakes without the rest of the table actually _seeing_ him eat them. The Babylon Rouges skulled their lukewarm coffee and headed downstairs speaking about a new heist. Sonic and Knuckles headed off to the Garden Centre, maybe to investigate this rumour further. Amy started for her job at the hair dressers leaving Silver and Tails alone in the kitchen.

"Do you know where Caleb is?" Tails murmured, "He didn't wake up early today like he normally does."

Silver cringed, "Caleb is Rapidi Solis' golden boy, so I saw him around even before I met him, you understand?" **(ii)**

"Yeah?"

"I heard from the other guys that Snippy may not get sick a lot, but when he does, it hits him like a tonne of bricks launching out of cannons. I forced him to go to Tikal yesterday. The guy looks like death warmed over, but he _still _wants to work." Silver scoffed, "Who needs rings that desperately?"

Tails looked away guiltily, because apparently, he was the only one that Caleb told about his financial problems. Caleb came down then in a tatty oversized t-shirt and some track pants, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. He leant against the counter as he drunk coffee, and Tails noticed the bags under his eyes looked like they'd sunken in and he was still shivering. The hand he was using to hold the coffee looked like it was straining under the weight of the mug. He narrowed his eyes at them and looked like he was about to say something before he released three hacking coughs that looked incredibly painful. He croaked instead of snapped, _"What?"_

"Do you have anything to make you feel better?" Tails murmured and Caleb narrowed his eyes, sneering. He looked _really_ annoyed.

"I'm going over to Cesario's house after this coffee. I tend to get _really_ moody when I'm sick and unfortunately, she's the only one that can handle me like that." Tails tried not to giggle at his t-shirt, which read; 'If I were an ENZYME I'd be DNA HELICASE so I could UNZIP YOUR GENES'.

When Caleb saw what Tails was laughing at he rolled his eyes, "Biology was one of the only academic subjects I was good at, okay?" **(iii)**

"You mean you get worse?" Silver joked, but this was obviously the wrong thing to do, considering that instead of responding verbally, Caleb tipped the remainder of his coffee into Silver's lap.

"_Shit. Seriously?"_

Tails doubted the (brown?) fox would have held himself back if that coffee had been scorching.

He still didn't reply, instead choosing to take his coffee upstairs. Tails was still worried though. Surely Lottie's medication couldn't have been so expensive that Caleb had to work himself into sickness to pay for it. He'd never seen someone that ill insist that they were fine before. That determination was… worrying.

"Alright," Silver said, tossing his dirty dishes into the sink, "I'm going to change and then I'm off. What do you plan to do today?"

Tails didn't have… _anything_ planned. Damn. "I'll figure something out."

"You do that. See ya."

"Bye."

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**Her piece of the puzzle.**

* * *

><p>Heartnet was always a pain to take care of, whether he was sick or not. Chris Thorndyke had the misfortune of knowing the kid, this weird <em>protégé<em> with the attitude of a stray cat. Caleb was actually an educational year above Chris, despite being seventeen and Thorndyke being eighteen. The fox, if he had continued his education at all, would have graduated last year. They'd both met during Chris' first year at Downunda, when Arielle Truscott had accidentally struck him with one of the wooden practice swords when she had been aiming for Caleb.

Now, Leilani was shoving aloe down his throat and drinking a very careful measured amount herself so that they didn't catch whatever the fox was carrying before he continued watching TV. It was their day off today, and Leilani had decided to dump her best friend with her unfortunate student while she went out and bought something to cook for dinner. Now Caleb had been fine to speak with before Arly had got to him (the malevolent _bitch_), because she had this way of poisoning those around her, which is what he assumed had happened with Leilani, who wasn't even _in _high school education five or four years ago. She just had the misfortune of bumping into Arly and they'd somehow clicked.

"You know, I don't really _get_ you two," Chris said as Caleb took up the other PS3 controller to join him in a game of multiplayer Assassins Creed. God _damn _was this guy good. First blood. "I mean, you and Cesario have an almost seven year age difference between the both of you, you're a Mobian, she's a human, and… I don't know, do you guys have any common interests?"

Caleb kept his eyes on the television, moving about so silently, Chris didn't even notice when the fox's avatar came up behind him and stabbed him in the back, sliding his blade right through his chest, "When Arly died, I was fifteen and Leilani was twenty one. We'd both lost a best friend. I know I haven't seen her for four years, but Leilani and I have been friends since before the both of us changed, and that's why we work. She can see my nightmares, and I can read her emotions. We're the only ones that can keep each other in check. Well... she has a little more help with you. Apart from her, I have no one."

Chris felt his heart sink. He truly felt sorry for the fox, and even though they'd known each other a pretty long time. Hell, Caleb had once tutored him in a science assignment, but they didn't know each other _that_ well. Hmm. Apparently, Caleb thought otherwise.

"Do you know Cesario's _deal?_"

"What _'deal'?_" Chris questioned, irritated by the condescending way that Caleb was speaking to him. He was _older_ than the fox dammit. Then again, Caleb just held this _confidence, _this air of superiority about him. Well… maybe it wasn't superiority but…_something_ commanding. The fox coughed, blowing his nose and then adding to the huge white pile on the coffee table (Chris was just thinking of moving the bin next to the fox).

"I'm going to tell you this, because Cesario never will, and maybe this will… well, it won't make you stop feeling that she's an irritating bitch, but it will make you understand her more. I'm sick of you thinking she is some kind of heartless monster. I'm explaining this to you, because I need you to _take care_ of her for as long as you can."

"So she _isn't_ some crazy woman that PMS's twenty-four seven?"

Caleb shook his head, still focusing on the game, "No, in fact, that's one of her oddities. She told me this shortly after our reunion… Leilani has a genetic defect, which only allows her to go through the menstrual cycle once every six months. That means that when she does, the effects are six times as painful, making her six times as sad, murderous and violent."

"Oh _joy._" Chris groaned.

The brown fox snarled at him, "Before the Crimson Night, she wanted to have a baby."

Chris blanched, dropping his defences and allowing himself to get killed. His mouth hung open. He turned to the sick vulpine, "Really? You're still talking about _this_ Leilani right? You know she hates kids right?"

"Yes, _Thorndyke. _She hates children because they're scared of her, because of the exaggerrated lies their parents spread about her, and the fact that she can't have any of her own. Twenty-one year old Leilani _Evans_ wanted to have a child, preferably with _Skye._"

The GUN agent felt like he'd been hit with a mallet, "But… she… but De Marco…"

Caleb seemed all the more angry at Chris' thoughtlessness, "Yes… Skye De Marco's methods of leaving this world were highly ironic, but it nevertheless, _broke her._ So much so than she already had been. Not only did the Crimson Night rob her off her chance to have a child with Skye, it also prevented from having kids with anyone else, since the chemicals pumped into her system by the aliens, the Black Arms, and the fact that she only bleeds twice a year rendered her _infertile._ Of all the torture, the mental illness, the physical pain they put her through, _this_ killed her."

"I don't understand. They had aliens for killing the humans, why couldn't they just kill experiments like her?"

Caleb pointed to the window, coughing into his hand, "You know why you have to keep tabs on Black Arms Garage right?"

"Yeah," Chris said, completely forgetting their game. His avatar was now at the mercy of the other online players, "because Project Shadow's first prototype lives there."

"He was a failure to the Black Arms because of the influence of a girl named Maria. Her presence and personality stimulated the frontal lobe of his brain, initiating things like problem solving functions, socialisation and spontaneity **(vii)**. Because he gained free will, he was deemed dysfunctional."

The puzzle in Chris' mind was slowly starting to piece together. On the screen, his avatar was assassinated.

"But…" he gulped, "what does that have to do with Leilani?"

He was almost scared to ask. Scratch that, he _was_ scared to ask.

Caleb looked reluctant to answer, but he had dug himself a hole, he needed to needed to finish what he'd started.

"Shadow was almost perfect, all they had to do, was remove his free will…"

"Gods no…"

It clicked. His heart sunk.

"Leilani was their _second _attempt at the ultimate life form."

* * *

><p><em>Army of Me<em> by Björk

* * *

><p>He descended the stairs a few hours later to find Storm wandering around the garage looking confused. Tails was as well, considering he had thought the bird had left with the rest of his team a few hours before. He approached Storm carefully, yelping when he tapped the bird on the shoulder and he retaliated by swinging his fists around. Tails barely managed to duck the blow, avoiding the complete pulverisation of his face.<p>

_Solaris, does he have __**weights **__attached to his wrists?_ he thought in alarm.

"Whoops. Sorry, Tails," Storm said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

The little fox chuckled nervously and dusted off his clothing, "S'alright. So, what are you doing here?"

"We just finished a heist," he answered sluggishly. "We were supposed to meet back here, but Wave is supposed to make a detour so she doesn't come back. Jet's not here yet, and my board is damaged, so I don't know what to do."

"Here," Tails offered, reaching out his hands, "if Wave can't fix it for you, I can mend it temporarily until she can."

"Would you?" he asked gratefully, giving Tails the board and following the fox kit to the workbench.

"Yeah, sure! It's my job and all. Now, what's the problem?" he asked, lugging up a toolbox and opening the clasps.

"I think the air tank is leaking," he stated as he tapped the small panel underneath the thrusters with one of his massive fingers. "Wave taught me how to fix this problem myself, but she normally does it for me, because my hands normally get in the way of some of the other wires and do-hickeys too."

"It's no problem," Tails insisted, after all, fixing leaky air tanks was Extreme Gear Technician 101. It was the kind of thing even Shadow could do in his sleep. After a few seconds of tinkering the tank was back to normal, "Done. Wave won't even have to look at it when she comes back."

"Awesome!" Storm grinned, picking up his Gear and placing it in one of the nearby chargers. "I don't know if there's any way to repay you, but if you ever need to you know, reach a high shelf or something-"

Tails chuckled at the blatant insult to his height and shook his head dismissively before he actually thought of something, "Actually, there is something I'd like from you."

"Is it my feathers?" Storm asked in horror, "because everyone's been asking for my feathers lately."

Tails raised an eyebrow, unsure why anyone would want one of Storm's feathers. They were probably just crazy fans that wanted memorabilia, "No. It's just that I see you play fighting with Jet and Wave all the time and I wanted to ask if you could teach me a few moves?"

"Oh," Storm smiled, "yeah, sure." He paused a second, "You know, everything that Wave said about you was wrong."

"What is Wave saying about me?" the fox said in alarm.

"Oops." Storm proceeded to move to the part of the garage where Shadow normally serviced cars, so there was a good amount of space to move about and fight. Storm immediately stepped into what Tails now recognised as a fighting stance, clenching his fists, and then to Tails' surprise, unclenching them. "Take it up with her, because I might be stronger than her, but she can swing that wrench _pretty_ damn hard."

"If you say so," he murmured, dropping into his own defensive stance, spacing apart his legs and holding his arms at the ready.

"Methel Alewah is the name of our fighting technique; it means 'to move like air'," he said, holding up his hands like he was trying to say 'stop'. "The most important part of this style is using our enemies' power against us, it was developed because birds have hollow bones, and because of that, everyone thinks that we're weaker. Because we were underestimated, we became successful. Birds as thieves? Everyone thought we were idiots…" Storm trailed off, focusing instead on him.

"And now you're world renowned."

Storm grinned cockily, "Alright, hit me, and I'll show you what to do. Our styles changed depending on our bodies and what we're good at."

Tails threw all of his weight into a punch that Storm's fist absorbed and he simply pushed the heel of his palm forward sending Tails back as if he had been hit with a huge gust of imaginary wind. Tails hit the ground hard, rolling twice before he managed to find his footing. Once he wasn't wobbling from side to side he focused his vision back on Storm, ignoring the throbbing pain in all of his limbs, "That. Was. _Awesome!_" Storm's smile widened as he watched the enthusiastic fox dart back to him from the other side of the garage, "Do you think you could show me how to do that?"

"Maybe not that one," he explained, patting Tails head, even though each time he did he felt like some small creature was jumping on his cranium, that's how heavy it was. "For that move you need to know exactly how much force your body can withstand."

"That's not a lot with me…" Tails trailed off. "Is there anything you _can_ show me?"

"Not a lot," the grey bird admitted, "you're better off asking Wave or Jet, but there is _something_ that can be useful." He made a 'come closer' motion with his hand and tossed Tails a wrench, "Try to hit me with that."

Tails was sceptical, darting to the side as he swung the tool at him. Storm stayed still until the fox kit was almost with him, at the last second aiming a punch to Tails' face. In retaliation, Tails skidded to a halt and held his hands up to block it when he realised that he wasn't holding the wrench anymore.

"We call this counter-steal or counter-disarm. Enemies have a higher chance of caring about self preservation, and will forget about the fact that you're not guarding your mid-section when you aim for their face. This is only recommended when your enemy isn't holding a gun, or they're just going to shoot."

"So this style also relies on involuntary reaction and mind processes?" Storm looked a little confused by the statement, but lit up when he understood and nodded his head. "Awesome! Thanks so much for teaching me this," he said, dipping his head.

"No problem. When you're a little stronger and faster, you should ask Wave to give you lessons. I'm sure she'd be happy to teach you."

Tails raised an eyebrow sceptically, "What's with that tone?"

"Nothing!" he replied, saved when someone knocked on the garage door.

The fox turned to regard who it was, "Oh hi, Cream." He turned back to Storm, "Hey, I'm not done with…" but the bird had already disappeared, much to Tails' chagrin. Everyone seemed to know what was going on but him these days. He gave it up and instead turned to the rabbit, who was cradling her Extreme Gear in her hands. He ran his hand through his fur and took of his jacket as he motioned for her to come closer.

"My day's been pretty boring so far, so what's up with your gear?" he asked her. It was pretty difficult to damage a beginner type gear. Cream's was a gear designed for kids, like a tricycle before a bike, a bike before a motorcycle, that kind of thing. Tails had an Extreme Gear license because he was now being assessed at a grade eleven level in terms of education, but Cream would have to wait until she was really sixteen to get a real Extreme Gear. Her type of Extreme Gear was called Tegmine **(iv)**.

"There's nothing wrong with it," she said flicking her fringe out of her face. She looked nice today, wearing a small orange tank top, jean shorts and a pair of white Vans. She looked a little different; it might have been the fact that he didn't really see her in anything but dresses. "I just wanted to ask if you could make it curve a little more. I'm having trouble getting around corners."

"Are you sure you're holding onto the air accumulators long enough?"

"Yes," she nodded, brown eyes widening, "I hold it for a full ten seconds to get around rough turns and it removes almost all of my air supply."

"Define 'almost all'," he requested, placing her gear down and opening the main panel. "Could you give me a percentage?"

"Um, eighty-five?" she guessed.

"I don't think it's your turning, I think it's your air supply," he said before he unlatched the controls and fiddled around with them. "A ten second turn, depleting all your air supply… that's roughly… oh wait, what is the capacity of your tank?... That's roughly eight thousand gravity points per second, and- would it be a malfunctioning refactors displaying the wrong specs? Broken radiator?... No that wouldn't make- What's your average trick grade?"

"Um, B?" she answered frantically, trying to understand Tails' calculations.

"B grades often earn about twenty percent of the air tank back. Minus the amount taken away and you won't have enough to endure another six kilometres with this Gear. This was probably due to the lessening chance of trick grades, arial bonuses or… Wow, Cream, have you been trying the harder tracks?"

In truth it looked like she'd only understood half of what he was saying, but when she heard the approving tone in his voice she nodded her head, "Yeah, I have been trying something a little more challenging."

"Wow! Which one?"

"I've been heading over to Sega Carnival to practice, there's heaps of shortcuts to adjust to so I keep having to think really quick," she seemed incredibly proud of her achievement. She'd give her credit for that. Three years ago Cream refused to even_touch_Extreme Gear, and now she was more advanced than people in her age group, namely him but he was a special case.

"That's a real improvement, Cream," he complimented, making her flush.

"Thank you."

"Well, the reason why you're not curving properly is because your Gear doesn't match the tracks you're riding now. It was okay for the beginner courses, but now that it's getting harder you'll either need a new Gear or upgrade this one, starting with a larger air tank."

Cream yipped happily, "Awesome, do you know where I can buy one?"

He tapped the screw driver he was using against the panel before putting it in his pocket, "I know a really nice dealer down by the Docks. I can take you there if you're interested."

Cream cringed, knitting her eyebrows, "Tails, is that a good idea? I mean, I saw what you did in the Market…"

"That was the Black Market," the fox replied, waving the event of like it was nothing, placing his phone and his wallet into his jeans. This modesty wasn't sitting well with her though, she had been honestly worried for Tails' safety, and then she'd come in right as he was fighting another person. Honestly… the Tails that she knew was changing and becoming… different. It was kinda hot, "They're not gonna attack me in broad daylight."

She shrugged and waited as he locked up the Black Arms, taking one last look around the Workshop trying to figure out where the Hell Storm went before closing down. On the way there, they spoke about trivial things, music, movies they might possibly want to watch. Being around Cream when she wasn't fawning was nice like that **(v)**, she was a great listener, and he felt relaxed, at ease. He just _had_ to go ruin that, didn't he?

"Cream?"

"Yes, Tails?"

"I need your advice." Yet it would have been obvious what kind of consultation he'd need by his body language. Caleb would be ashamed of how see through he was right now. His palms were sweaty and he couldn't keep straight contact with her, plus he had shoved his hands into his jeans. Definitely not signs of confidence.

"Of course, Tails," she agreed, because that's what _friends_ do. They help each other. "You can tell me anything."

The words came out like mush in his mouth, "I'm having trouble with a certain _girl._"

Cream's lazily pleased expression suddenly became more alert, snapping her large brown eyes in his direction, but all that she could make off him was the side of his face. He was flushing and scratching the back of his head nervously.

_"Really?"_

"Yeah," he whined, "she's really smart, and beautiful and talented." He didn't notice how Cream blushed as she said that sentence, pleasant tingles running along her neck and collarbone. "I can speak to her so easily but I don't know how to make her feel the same way."

"How do you know she doesn't already?" Cream murmured.

"Because she shows no interest whatsoever."

The rabbit huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, "Maybe she isn't showing any interest because you're not," she replied. "Although, if she likes you, I'm sure she would have tried to show a little interest to get a reaction out of you."

"She hasn't," he insisted, his voice on the verge of a whine, "she treats me like a little brother," Cream raised an eyebrow, "and picking on me like no tomorrow." The rabbit's eyes widened, because none of what he was saying was actually adding up in her head. "Plus, she likes to rub her success in my face… actually, she hasn't done that in a while, but the fact that she's so much better with Extreme Gear kind of makes me feel inferior sometimes and-"

"Argh!" Cream growled, finally realising who Tails was speaking about. She stormed ahead of him, noticing that they were almost at the Docks.

"What?" he asked, cursing his inability to read women, even to a basic extent.

"You're an _idiot!_"

"Was it something I said?"

* * *

><p><em>Sweet Dreams (Cover) <em>by Marilyn Manson **(vi)**

* * *

><p>One thing he forgot to remember in New Town was that even the safest part of Soleanna had alleyways.<p>

He'd almost caught up to Cream when a hand darted out and grabbed her top, and with a yelp, she was dragged into the darkness between two ancient buildings. He raised an eyebrow, having not seen the hand, wondering if Cream had seen something strange there. He felt a prickling feeling on the back of his neck telling him that he wasn't meant to be here, that the atmosphere had suddenly changed to something dastardly and sinister. Every fibre in his being told him that he shouldn't have been moving any closer. And then there was the guilt. He needed to follow Cream. He was the older one, technically she was his responsibility.

Further than that, Cream was his friend. He had to make sure she was alright.

He didn't feel like travelling along the alleyway was safe though, so he climbed the building and followed the alleyway until he reached a dead end, trying to identify the figures inside the small nook. There were three of them, two humans and one Mobian. The Mobian was holding Cream and covering her mouth so that she couldn't scream, one of the humans held a Ruger SR22 Rimfire while the other one… held a knife in his left hand because his right thumb was missing.

Of course, he'd heard the rumours about what Tails Doll had done to MarDean but he didn't dare actually believe them.

"Where _is_ that asshole?" MarDean growled, blue eyes scanning the area, giving each and every surrounding brick a menacing glare. "You'd think with the way that he was talkin' to her that he'd care enough about this noisy bitch to come to her aid."

"Maybe he knows it's you," the Mobian, a black-furred, red-eyed rabbit said. "If he isn't comin' I'd be happy to take this delicious morsel off his hands," he purred into one of Cream's ears, making the rabbit squirm and cry out behind her makeshift gag.

Tails felt a surge of anger pulse through him, temporarily skewering his thought process for a second. What did he have on him that could be used as a weapon? A disposable phone? His wallet chain. A beginner's Extreme Gear. A small screw driver he'd forgotten to put back into his tool box. Great.

He snuck up behind them, trying to survey the area and make sure he'd analysed everything when Cream gave a muffled shout, and the human next to her, carrying the pistol, lodged the butt of the gun into her gut and her legs gave out on her.

"Shut up, you dirty cunt."

Tails couldn't take it anymore. Something in him, the thin, tiny, iity-biddy string that was keeping him sane snapped and he pounced from the rooftops like a bat out of Hell, swinging the nose of Cream's board down _hard_ on the head of the human with the gun.

There was a loud _cracking_ noise, and his knees hit the ground with a thump as the gunman fell to the floor in a lifeless heap, the firearm clattering. MarDean was still a ways off, just turning around. Unfortunately, the rabbit holding Cream had noticed what happened and decided to release Cream, knowing that MarDean now knew what was happening and dove for the gun. Just as he was doing that, Tails brought out his wallet and threw it towards the black Mobian's head, watching as the chain wrapped around his neck.

"Son of a bitch!"

Tails tugged, and the rabbit choked, hands coming to his neck as he was flung towards the fox, landing at his feet. He retracted his wallet, and placed it back into his pocket, eyes darting to Cream. MarDean was almost with them, but the human that he had hit with the Extreme Gear was waking up and aiming his gun in Tails' direction. Before his vision cleared completely, Tails snatched the firearm, flipped the safety and threw it towards Cream, who shrieked.

"Don't hesitate to shoot their non-vitals!" he barked, just as MarDean tried to swipe at his neck with the knife, which he missed with a hair's breadth between them.

"Because I didn't _murder_ you before, the Tails Doll came along and _cut my FUCKING __**THUMB**__ OFF!_" MarDean snarled as he swiped and swiped and swiped, hoping that the knife would find its way to Tails' flesh. Tails' evasions were dexterous though, fast and swift as the wind. What he didn't take into account, was how close he was to the wall. In a second, he'd slammed into the god forsaken barrier and MarDean had him pinned. In seconds the force applied to his left forearm was enough to break it. Seconds shy of snapping the bone, Tails raised a knee and struck MarDean so hard he stumbled back gasping for breath and choking out blood.

"You _deserved _it!"

"The only thing I deserve is a medal for taking you down, like the brutes in the Black Market didn't manage to accomplish," MarDean sneered, rearing back as Tails aimed a punch for his face, raising his hands to defend his face. His was shocked however to realise that instead of being struck, he'd been robbed of his weapon. Tails reared back his arm and threw the blade onto the roof so it was completely useless, only to panic again when he heard a scream. MarDean was still blocking his face, trying to get over his astonishment, so Tails slammed a foot into his ribs, feeling an odd sense of sick satisfaction when he heard something in MarDean_crack._

He turned around to Cream, noticing that she was still fiddling with the gun but she didn't know where the safety was. He doubted she would have the nerve to shoot it anyway, and the problem was that the rabbit he had choked was also getting up as well. Tails slipped the mini screwdriver out of his socket, rocketing a sucker punch into the human's side and slamming into the wall, completely ignoring the flashing, squeamish thoughts in his head as he slammed the five centimetre screw driver into the attacker's thigh, thick blood that was almost black dripping down his leg. He only letting him go once he started screaming in agony.

"_FUCK!"_

Satisfied he wasn't getting up again, he turned back to the rabbit, who was still trying to make a grab at Cream. Unaware that Tails had now focused his attention on him, the fox grabbed the back of the rabbit's head and slammed it into the nearest brick wall, the harsh violent movements now coming to him with an ease that made him scared.

There was only MarDean left, weaponless while Tails gently took the gun out of Cream's hand, instantly shooting the human in the leg and in the shoulder, watching him writhe as his nerves and pain receptors protested and screamed in abhorrence, as if they were being set afire by the bullets lodged into his flesh. The fox's sneaker Tails' grip on the gun was shaking, fighting against his mind and his heart and the rest of his body.

Tails wanted to shoot MarDean, right between the eyes.

He wanted to see this terrible soul off to whatever unfortunate deity he worshipped.

He never wanted to hear him speak again.

He wanted the MarDean in his nightmares to _stay_ in his dreams, and not reach beyond those boundaries.

But he only got so far as aiming the gun at MarDean's face-

"_P-please, _I… I don't wan-wanna d-die."

-when Cream screamed.

"_No!"_

He didn't look at her. He struggled to stand, with legs as thin as scripture he almost tumbled when she tackled him into a hug.

"You are _better_ than he is! Don't degrade yourself!"

"…" He didn't answer, but the protests were running through his head.

_He scares me. He hurt me. He hurt __**you**_. _His father killed my mother. He __**ruined**__ me. He gave me these ugly __**scars**__. He'll __**continue**__ to hurt me. He might hurt someone __**else**__. What reason does this sick fucker have to __**live?**_

Tails hands were still shaking, as if he was cold, but he wasn't. He was exhilarated and he was sad. He was tired and he was in pain. He was loosing patience and hurting and crying and dead inside, wanting to give into the temptation to pull the god damned trigger. Heat throbbed in his heart, his mind, his soul, his body and it was eating him from the inside out.

_**"It's because HE DESERVED TO DIE!"**_

_**You**__ deserve to die._

_I__** want**__ him to __**die.**_

…

_So __**why**__ can't I pull the trigger?_

Tails' sneaker lodged further into MarDean's chest, making the frightened human cry out in pain because of the bullets and the general beating that he had gotten.

"If I put just a tiny little more pressure on your sternum, your rib cage will break, collapsing many of your major organs including your heart and your lungs," Tails murmured, in a low monotone. He thought about it for a second, revelling in the power to actually_do_ that, to _kill_ someone, and then he took his foot off and instead took out his phone, dropping the gun. "But I won't, because I'm not you."

He looked to Cream, then himself, noticing that they were both wearing gloves.

_**"Mutants deserve to die because they're unnatural, immoral, and you've killed so many of us regular Mobians and humans. Your very nature is grotesque."**_

"I've lost everything I've ever cared about because of people like you. _I'm immoral? I'm __**grotesque? **_Comparing me, to a person who blames their murdering father's death, on someone who's in the Grand Prix to _stop_ people like you from attacking them so they can live in relative _peace._ Comparing brave men and women alike, risking their lives to protect others, to people like you, who attack friends and family of the mutants, just to use them to your advantage. Comparing _me_ to _you, _someone who is so bigoted and_idotic_that they actually tried to _poison_ me with aloe vera, which would have done nothing but made me _stronger_ by the way**(viii)**. You're a joke."

MarDean made a sound between a growl and a whimper, but any words he said were muffled by the bubbles of blood bursting from his mouth.

He lay there;

Crippled.

Scared.

_Broken._

But there was an obvious difference between Tails and MarDean-

"Your father was electrocuted into submission," Tails murmured, throwing the gun to the ground and rummaging around the attacker's pockets, finding a lighter. He ripped off a strip of the unconscious rabbit's t-shirt and started cleaning up whatever blood he and Cream had left behind, setting it on fire once he was done, "It would do you well, to stay down too.

"Whatever deity you believe in will get to you eventually," Tails snarled, all the hatred he was capable of conveyed in his icy blue eyes, "let's just hope that the ambulance gets here _before_ Tails Doll does." He hit 'send' before grabbing Cream's wrist and walking away.

-Where he showed _wrath,_ Tails showed _mercy._

**To: **Royal Court Hospital, Emergency Service

**From: **unknown number

an alleyway off main street by the royal court closest to the aqueducts. three injured. no culprit. hurry.

...

"So how was your day, Tails?"

The fox paused, chopsticks twitching in his hands as he reached for a dumpling. Silver had found an awesome Chinese place to buy take out at.

"Anything interesting happen?"

A sigh.

A shake of his head.

Silver turned back to the TV. Shadow raised an eyebrow. Sonic said, "Really? Nothing?"

Caleb eyed the fox curiously and smiled before disappearing upstairs.

"Nope."

_If only._

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes:-<strong>

**(i) **When was this? See Chapter 33: I Can Save You, under the section _You Kill Me (In A Good Way) _by Sleeping With Sirens.

**(ii)** What's Silver speaking about? See Chapter 2: Why Don't We Run Away?, under the section _Runaway_ by Artist vs. Poet.

**(iii) **To back this statement up; The properties of Aloe Vera (Ch: 14), brainwave activity necessary to cause empathic responses (n'duh, empath), forensic science (Ch: 30), knows _all about_ infections and diseases (Ch: 38,*spoiler*) and he actually graduated high school _weeks_ before AoODD started (with a STAR (Solean Tertiary Admission Rank) of 99.92 in Advanced English and Visual Arts with a 89.14 in Biology and Music.) It just wasn't at a GUN Academy like he had hoped, because then he would have been able to apply for scholarships. Caleb's a smart cookie, but he can't afford college. Sonic and Knuckles are in the same situation.

**(iv) **_'Tegmine' _is Latin for cocoon. It's like, the second stage. The first stage is skateboards. The third stage is Extreme Gear.

**(v) **I don't bash this couple, I _like _it. I used to support it until I realised how freaking hot the dynamic between Wave/Tails is. But Cream is young and virtuous; I'm not sure how anyone would add a little spice to that relationship. I haven't found any Tails/Cream fics I like so far.

**(vi) **The contrast in this song is actually really important. So it's one of those that I really recommend, even if you don't really like that kind of music. In Chapter 25: Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These, under _Sweet Dreams (Cover) _by Emily Browning we have a version of the song that's haunting and beautiful at the same time, but with Marilyn Manson's cover (rockier, edgier, creepier, sounding _harsh, _sounding _violent_) we have a reality that is so much scarier than anything you can dream up. I'd also like to note that I wrote the violence drinking tea from a pretty pink tea cup.

**(vii) **Think of Shadow as a lobotomised vegetable for a second. Like a _real _science experiment. Lobotomy scares me.

**(viii)** See Chapter 20: This World Has Changed Me, under the section _The Bomb Dot Com Version 2.0_by Sleeping With Sirens.

An extra vote goes to anyone that gets the joke on Caleb's shirt!

Here are this chapter's drabble choices:-

**1. **One of Shadow's flashbacks from the past. (family)

**2. **Caleb trying to paint (insert name here)'s emotional aura, and being really bitchy about it. (humour)

**3. **A peek into Tails' infinite playlist. He likes to dance while he's working, much to Wave's amusement. (humour)

**ღ**


	43. To Forgive and Never Forget

**domi|note**

I've been spending my weekend downloading Sonic/Crash game level themes. It's so rainy here there's nothing else to do.

For anyone that didn't get the message, the new chapters are Chapter 24: Iron Domain Part One to Chapter 27: Two Nocturnal Knights Part Two.

I kind of ripped off a scene from _HunterXHunter_ here.

**warning:- **There's shonen-ai in this chapter. It isn't real, but it's there nonetheless.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. ~Josh Billings<br>_...  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying<strong> **Day**  
>.<strong><br>**_Chapter Forty Three  
><em>.  
>"Cause I'm holdin' on tryna be somebody. But it won't be long before I need somebody. Forgiveness, asking for forgiveness."<br>_...  
>kobiee; <em>**the frayed ends of a hemp bracelet.**

* * *

><p>Breaking in her new job, Marine had been left completely out of the loop with what had been happening around the Black Arms, so she decided that if she couldn't reach Blaze to figure out why everything seemed a little… off, she'd find Caleb.<p>

She'd visited the garage a little while ago and Tails seemed a little… melancholy. Silver was _too_ happy. Shadow was… being _polite_ and very distant. Amy was being pleasant. Knuckles seemed to be the only one that had his act together, and she didn't even want to _try_ anything concerning the freaking avians.

She was upset to discover that the fox was ill, wondering if she could help with anything, she decided to pop into Cesario's where she discovered Caleb spent some of his spare time. She'd always been taught that eavesdropping was bad, but it wasn't like it stopped anyone from doing it.

"Lani! Lani! I can see the light, and it's beckoning me to come forward-!" Yep. That was Caleb.

"Oh shut up, you insufferable twit." And _that_ was Cesario. There was shuffling noises, and someone was playing a game softly in the background.

"But seriously, could you draw the blinds, Chris? I feel like my head's stuck in the worst hangover," he groaned, pain and weariness breaking his voice into pieces. Marine winced, he sounded like he was really in distress. It made her wonder, wasn't he apprenticed to a medic?

"Isn't it ironic, that you're training to be a doctor?" Leave it to Cesario.

"Oh shut up. Medic. _Medic. _Welshscot is better with injuries. Doctor Quack is the best diagnostician I know, and I don't need him to find out about this. I'm afraid _Tikal_ knows. It's all Silver's fault."

It seemed that even illness couldn't affect his chatty nature, bent on making people feel stupid and inferior. But she _still _wondered… Find out about _what?_

"I never wanted to _be_ a bloody doctor. Helping other people is _not_ in my nature."

"Oh yes, we have established that," Chris affirmed. She knew the unlucky bugger; they'd crossed paths once or twice while he was on errands for his mentor. Leilani treated him as more of a slave then an actual student.

"Could you shut up? This conversation is for non-students only."

"What?" Chris scoffed, "did you drop out?"

"What? _No. _What lies has Lani been feeding you? I've _graduated_."

…

_What?_

For some reason, she couldn't imagine Caleb at school _now._ Of course, he had mentioned the fact that he went to GUN Academy to her before, but seeing him in a uniform now seemed very… odd. And now she understood why; he had already finished his high-schooling. It made her feel inadequate, like he was another huge gap away.

"How the hell did you do that? You're _younger_ than me!"

"I entered high school when I was ten _turning_ eleven. I graduated sixteen _turning_ seventeen. Ya get me? God, why is everyone surprised when I tell them that?"

"Because you're naturally immature."

"Thanks, Lani. You always know how to make a guy feel special."

Their biting remarks at each other made them sound like an old married couple, which Marine found highly amusing. Of course, when Caleb had told her that Leilani was his best friend, she hadn't believed him, but their personalities melded perfectly, she was surprised she hadn't see it before.

"Don't speak with innuendos; my mind is in the gutter right now."

Marine was about to knock on the door when a hand shot out to stop her. She looked up at the stranger, shocked when she realised it was an _incredibly_ beautiful Mobian girl, possibly around eighteen or nineteen years old. But she couldn't tell what species she was, and was about to ask when she pressed a slender hand to her lips in a sign for silence.

Marine panicked, until she learned to process the information, this lady wasn't covering her mouth, and she'd just released her hand, meaning that she wasn't actually a threat. The raccoon relaxed and continued to listen in, keeping one weary eye on the girl next to her. She had sparkling blue eyes, and bright white fur that was tinged with an odd turquoise at the ends of her hair.

She was dressed in a loose flannel, similar to the kind that Caleb always wore, multi-belted short-shorts and small boots with noisy little charms sewn into a strip of velvet wrapped around the ankles. Marine was surprised to note that she wore an odd amount of hemp bracelets and charms around her wrists. She looked like one of the models in the magazines that Blaze read sometimes.

She returned her attention back to the conversation at hand, "Alright, let's see how you're doing… you still have a temperature, meaning fever. Headache? Blocked sinuses? Sore throat?"

A paused. An affirmation.

"Stomach ache? Joint pain? Hallucinations?"

He probably said yes.

"Have you thrown up in the last hour?"

"Yes," Chris replied, his tone on edge, "four times since you last left."

"Aww," she cooed, "allergies?"

"I don't _have_ allergies," he scowled, coughing into his hand.

"Really?" she asked him, "What was all that crap you were spouting about being allergic to sheep meat?"**(i)**

"I'm not," he shook his head, "I needed to cover up the fact that I can't eat liver," he murmured. "Liver contains phagocytes, meant to control and mandate diseases that come from… you know…"

Marine didn't, but she didn't want to know. The girl next to her made a face.

"My body's rejecting them because of the nature of this sickness."

Leilani sighed, "Caleb, there's only one way for you to get better, even if it's only temporary."

The stranger's perfectly shaped lips curled up in a smirk, blue eyes glittering, "_No!_ I refused to drink that! Or have you forgotten what happened last time?"

"Caleb, I wasn't _around_ the last time you drank it, just a few of the first times that you did," she answered.

"I can't drink aloe around _you_would be a more articulate way to say it. That's incredibly dangerous."

"Why would it be dangerous?" Chris asked.

"Empath," Caleb said simply.

"Illusionist," Leilani said.

"Wait a minute," the brown-haired student said, "is it even _possible_ for you to combine powers like that?"

Leilani growled menacingly, and there was a tinkle as a bottle of some kind changed hands, "You know what to do if he refuses to drink it." A pause. "What was your last proximity?"

"One-hundred and sixty meters," he sighed, but his voice was so weak, she almost didn't hear him.

"That's probably spanned out to four-hundred, now that you're seventeen," she murmured. "I'm going to be out of range in five minutes. You _drink_ the bottle, you understand me? It's the only way to get you better for now. If you _really_ think you're going to hurt someone, you can stay in the closet." The mystery girl snorted and Marine gave her a dirty look. What was wrong with her? Laughing at his pain like that.

There was a shuffling sound from indoors and Marine and the strange woman moved further down the hallway, but before she could leave, the wanna-be pirate stopped her, "Who are you?"

The mysterious Mobian bent down so she could look Marine in the eyes from a good level, her voice was melodic, it was _ethereal_ hearing her speak, "I'm assuming you know one of the people in there?"

"Yes, but do you?"

Her lips curved into a smile again, eyes glinting dangerously, her tail swishing back and forth teasingly, leaning down to whisper something in Marine's ear.

She left strutting away happily, singing a tune down the stairs. It was a haunting and beautiful melody, sung by someone with the voice of an angel. It was frightening, because Marine wasn't exactly music orientated, but she had to admit this woman had the vocal chords she'd die for.

_"You're there through thick and thin,  
>Making sure that I stand tall.<br>And I'm no prince, but I'll be there,  
>To catch you when you fall."<em>**(ii)**

In seconds Leilani had bolted out the door, surprising the ever living shit out of Marine who pressed herself against the wall in fright. The GUN agent looked at the raccoon confusingly before asking, in a rough, worried tone, "Did you see the person that was singing that?"

The raccoon gulped and nodded, moving past Leilani to see Caleb who was in a sitting position on the couch, looking tired, scared and expectant, "Please tell me I was hallucinating?"

Marine shook her head, "She said your Black Widow's come back to see you."

Caleb was a mix of emotions, disbelief shining through the rest. His breath escaped him shakily as he leant his elbows on his knees, knotting his fingers in his hair, staring at the floor as he tried to gain his bearings. He was shaking.

Leilani was looking between Caleb and the part of the hallway where the mysterious woman had disappeared, her eyes flashing red.

Her heart tore in two when he heard a choked sob escape the weak fox on the sofa, who was desperately trying to suppress the tears and the pain and the shaking and the fear.

"No… it _can't_ be," Leilani growled, shaking her head as the brown in her eyes gave way to their deadly crimson glow.

Marine stared at Caleb sadly, watching him break down silently in front of her.

_"Impossible."_

* * *

><p><em>I am down right amazed at what I can destroy with just a hammer<em> by Atom and His Package

* * *

><p>"Shads!"<p>

The black hedgehog turned his head to see who had addressed him, wincing at the shrill tone that Marine had used to get his attention. Just as he suspected, he could see the ridiculous green sneakers from his vantage point under the car he was servicing, and promptly wheeled out from underneath it to see what the fuss was about. Marine was red-faced and panting, pointing to the gap in the giant garage doors, which was now at the perfect angle so that he could see Cesario's apartment block.

"There somethin' you wanted?" he asked, while waiting for her to gain her breath.

"''eachother!" she said, trying to get her message out in one breath, but it was lost on Shadow, who tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"Come again?"

Marine gulped in a few more mouthfuls of air before pointing back to the apartment block, "Snippy! 'E said the only way to get better was ta drink the wretched green stuff! Cesario gave me a right ear-bashin' because I was askin' why he made so much fuss over drinkin' a gobful of his meds, but 'pparently it's gonna pull the cat's piss outta him because they're actin' like e's gonna bloody cark it."

"… Excuse me?"

Marine groaned and rolled her eyes, slapping her forehead with the heel of her palm, "Jus' make sure your mates don't pull the knife over each other, considerin' how violent each of 'em are. 'Specially that pink one."

Shadow raised a brow, confused. His recently recovered memories revealed that he had lived in Downunda for a small amount of time, and it wasn't that Marine's dialogue was confusing him. Oh no. He understood it well enough, it was the fact that the subject of her speech didn't make sense. What was wrong with Caleb? And why was everyone going to murder each other?

"Why did you come to me?" he asked her.

She shrugged, "Snippy said to head to you. Don't know why. Prob'ly 'coz you're emotionless an' all." When she realised what had slipped out of her mouth, she clamped her hands over it, backing away from the hedgehog instantly. But he surprised her instead, by smiling and releasing a quiet snort-he meant _snicker!_ Because Shadow the hedgehog does _not_ snort.

This still made him ponder, after all, why would Caleb choose him out of everyone in Black Arms? Surely someone with more leadership should direct whatever crisis was coming to them, like Sonic or Knuckles. Hell, even Tails and Amy were better leaders than Shadow could be. He wasn't a sheep by any means, but he considered himself a lone wolf. He didn't like ordering everyone else about unless it seemed like no one else was capable of taking charge of a situation that needed a leader.

Stuck in his musings, he was completely unaware of a wave of _anger_ that washed through _everyone_ in the Black Arms' district, so he panicked when Marine came at him with one of his wrenches, throwing the item so that it skimmed past his face and dented one of his toolboxes. He turned to the raccoon, who was looking at him like he had just drowned her mother, and she wanted revenge. He could see the veins in her forehead popping out, while her mouth was twisted down in a fierce snarl.

"What was that for?" he asked, stepping away from the raccoon cautiously.

Her hands shook as she balled them into fists, and she looked at them, clenching her fingers menacingly, "I don' _know!_ I just 'ave the unexplained urge to _kill_ something!"

Shadow, worried because of Marine's response, decided to go upstairs. Upon reaching the second floor, he was shocked when a knife whizzed past his nose and hurtled into the wall, burying the blade up to the hilt, still ringing out in the faint vibrato made by the wobbling metal.

_Alright, that is __**very**__ worrying. _

"Shadow! You arrogant prick! I am going to mutilate you!" Amy screamed from the third floor, which worried him greatly when another knife narrowly missed his tail and made another mark in the wall.

"Yeah! Let's kill him!" Knuckles and Silver cheered running down the stairs of the third floor.

"What did I do?" Shadow groaned, rolling his eyes. He couldn't relax though, because Sonic appeared out of absolutely nowhere and tackled him to the ground.

"This is what you get for acting so high and mighty, Shadow! It just makes me want to…" right before his eyes, Sonic's expression of suppressed rage softened, his lips curled into a smirk, "Want to…" his eyes darkened and suddenly he had no regard whatsoever for Shadow's personal space, "Want to rip your _clothes off_."

"_Excuse me?" _the black hedgehog asked in alarm as Sonic started to unzip his hoodie and attack his belt. He pushed Sonic off just in time to save his dignity, and ran away while trying to hitch up his pants.

"Come here, Shadow darling, you know you can't resist this charm," Sonic cooed, green eyes misty with lust and passion.

"Solaris, _mood swing_ much?" Shadow muttered darkly before the metaphorical light bulb lit up.

_Mood swing! That's what Marine meant about not killing each other. But… _

Was this what happened when empaths drank aloe vera? Shadow knew this was not the best time to be thinking about this subject, but he couldn't help but wonder why he was the only one that hadn't been affected by this. How did Caleb _know_ that he would be the only one that wouldn't be affected?

He was jolted out of his thinking again when Sonic jumped onto his back and wrapped his arms around Shadow's neck, attempting to kiss the side of Shadow's face.

"Get the _fuck_ off me!"

Eventually loosing balance, he fell onto the carpeted floor of the living room, holding back Sonic's lips in an attempt to see where everyone else was. Tails had come just appeared from the garage, and had started rushing at Shadow as well. Knuckles and Silver were hugging each other and yelling things about how much they loved each other.

"Oh my, I just vomited in my mouth a little," Shadow moaned, but Sonic didn't seem deterred by the comment at all. He didn't even sound like he'd heard the comment.

"I love Shadow too!" Tails yelled, trying to crowd around the unfortunate black hedgehog as well. This caused a chain reaction, causing Amy, Silver and Knuckles to stack on Shadow as well.

"We all love Shadow!" they yelled at the same time.

_When I get out of this mess I am going to __**castrate**__ Heartnet!_

"For the love of God," he groaned before letting out a very unmanly sound, "DON'T! Get your hand _away_ from there!" He wriggled out of the pile, just barely, right in time for another mood shift.

Sonic started speeding around the house so he was nothing but a blue streak in the air, yelling "No! The toaster is after me!"

Silver made an epic pose as he climbed to the top of the couch, "To the closet! We'll be safe in there!"

Everyone else moved towards the storage compartment, but Tails latched onto Shadow's leg murmuring, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die," over and over again.

_What's this emotion? Panic? Fear?_

"The jam!" Sonic screeched, "They're out for my _tongue!_"

Yep. It was fear.

He shook Tails off his leg, and as soon as the fox kit got up he started crying.

"Oh shit, really?" the black hedgehog groaned. Like he had _any_ idea how to deal with crying children. "Tails, please don't cry. I'm sorry, okay?"

"Shadow! No one's ever going to love me!" he moaned, and his cries were joined by the rest of the Black Arms, much to Shadow's increased annoyance. He was reaching the end of his metaphorical rope here. If he had to deal with any more of this nonsense he was going over to Cesario's place and lopping off Heartnet's head.

The rest of them toppled out of the closet, bawling their eyes out.

Something toppled over with a vicious smash and Shadow snapped, turning around and locking the door behind him. He could just imagine what he would find once he came back from Rouge's place; the remnants of one massive orgy, a self-help group, or a slaughter house. He just wasn't going to be involved, not while he could keep his wits about him.

_They can kill each other for all I care. _

Three hours later…

"I'm back! Oh _fuck-!_"

"Come _back _here, Heartnet! So I can use your blood to paint the walls!"

* * *

><p><em>E.G.G.M.A.N. Doc (Robeatnix Remix) <em>by REMIX Factory and Paul Shortino

* * *

><p>Heat thrummed through his body as he blocked the attack, ignoring the pain and letting it phase through him while Shadow's blows increased with speed and ferocity.<p>

"C'mon Shadow, resistance is futile."**(iii)**

A well aimed kick tore through him, stealing the breath from his lungs and causing him to topple over, while Shadow took the time to pull off his gloves.

"Remember what I told you? Prioritise your defense unless you _know_ exactly how much of a blow you can handle. And by the looks of it, and the fact that you're over estimating yourself, you _don't_ know yet." Tails coughed out the blood, wiping his mouth and staring up at Shadow, nodding appreciatively and respectfully.

Shadow's eyes glimmered with something that looked like regret and recognition before he walked to the edge of the rooftop and pulled out his phone. Tails didn't know what was so important that it had to interrupt their sparring lesson, but by the few words that he heard made him assume something had jogged Shadow's memory. Something involving robots and an 'Omega', whatever that meant.

Sitting on the half pipe were Wave and Jet, who, as luck would have it, completely task-free and were observing Tails' sparring session with little interest, a packet of chips between them which Jet was hogging. It was a particularly hot day today, and Wave felt sorry for the young fox, deciding to train in such horrid weather. There was a time where she could remember trying to keep up her training while her team had been in the midst of Shamar, desert country. It wasn't great. Not only did she not want to move, but there wasn't much you could get done without sand creeping into your underwear. Jet and Storm had spent the entirety of their time there in gloves and sneakers.

Tails panted, handson his elbows while Wave heaved herself up and tapped a condensing bottle of water against his forehead. He murmured his thanks before snatching the water and gulping it down greedily, just in time for Knuckles to join them. Shadow said something to the echidna before Knuckles nodded and started heading over to Tails.

"Breaks over, Kiddo. You fight me now," he grinned, getting into a battle stance. Tails nodded and gave Wave her bottle, moving to the middle of he mini launch field they had been using as training grounds.

"Thought you were working today," Tails said as Knuckles threw the first punch, blocking it with his forearm and moving in for an uppercut, only for that attempt to be foiled as well.

"Nope," he said. "Had more important things to do."

"Like-" he feinted left, "what?"

"Catching up with the Nocturnes," the echidna answered, ducking his foot out and sweeping Tails off his feet. The kitsune yelped and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding Knuckles' stomp by rolling to the side, grabbing his ankle and pulling him down as well. He hopped to his feet, but the echidna was up again as well.

"What did-" he avoided another punch, skimming across his whiskers, "they have to tell you?"

"That-" he feinted left, then right, managing a suckerpunch to Tails' jaw, allowing a five second break before the next attempted attack. Tails stepped back twice, nursing the injury and waiting for Knuckles to finish his sentence, "the rumour about Eggman wanting to legalise Extreme Gear is legit."

"Seriously?" he groaned, in pain and annoyance. "But…" the words were a little hard to form, partly because his mouth was so sore, but mostly due to the fact that he couldn't really _think _of what to say, which was surprising for him, "…there has to be some kind of catch, right?"

"Of course there is," Knuckles said, aiming another kick to Tails' solar plexus, but Tails was learning his style. The echidna favoured strong, straight punches over kicks and crafty moves, relying more on solid power than anything else. He also prioritised defense, but his attacks were predictable. In a normal fight it wouldn't matter because Knuckles would have knocked out his opponent cold, they would just underestimate his power. But Tails hadn't, and he realised that if he kept on blocking Knuckles' attacks, he could surely break a bone, "we just haven't figured out what it is."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, some interesting info," he replied. Kick. Punch. Jab. Punch. Kick. Feint. Punch. Punch. Tail swipe. It was becoming mundane. Tails needed to find a way to overpower him.

"Like?"

"Like Eggman has invested in the work of some historians. Nocturne spies say he's investing big money in tryin' to find something associated with the Babylonians. Something involving a 'key'." Tails stopped mid-attack, which was a very dangerous thing to do, his mind immediately reverting back to a conversation he had overheard a month or two ago. **(iv)**

_"Though it is kind of annoying to be stuck with that blue rat. Yeah, you're right Wave. Don't worry! I did my research."_

_"You know, Sonic's role as some kind of 'Justice League' character might get us in some hot water later on."_

_"That is true, but we need to save up as much money as we can to get a new ship, buy off the Underground to get my Grandfather's key so we can get the hell out of this cesspool and be rid of these lunatics once and for all." _

Fortunately for them, Jet and Wave seemed completely engrossed in their own conversation to join theirs. Whatever the topic was, it was making Wave uncomfortable.

He was jolted out of his thoughts, once again when he was kneed in the stomach, doubling over in pain. For some inane reason, he started laughing.

"What's wrong with you?" Knuckles asked, smiling at Tails' mirth.

"I don't know," he grinned before jumping back into a fighting stance.

"So anyway," the echidna said, getting back into their monotonous fighting sequence, "the Nocturnes' spies have managed to dig up communication records between Eggman and the Grand Battle Kukku."

"What's that?" Tails asked, twisting left and narrowly avoiding another one of Knuckle's kicks.

"Are you guys speaking about The Armada?" Jet shouted.

"Yeah!" Tails replied, "What's a 'Grand Battle Kukku'?"

"Which one are ya talking about?" asked Wave.

"Number fifteen," Knuckles called back.

Jet got up, looking indignant as he waved his fist in the air, "Enlil, I _hate_ that guy! With his stupid green pants, and his fancy high heels. Plus he's stupider than a sack of hammers!"

"You're one to talk," Wave replied cheerily, smiling when she received a growl from her team leader.

He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked cruely, "Oh, and Wave used to go out with his son, Speedy."

"_I DID __**NOT!**__"_ she snarled, hitting Jet over the head, taking out her spanner and waving it in his face, "I _can't _believe you would say something like that!"

Jet didn't seem phased by this at all, proceeded to run away from her as fast as he could while she followed him with her spanner of doom, _"Wave and Speed-y, sitting in a nest! Hot, sweat-y and inappropriately dressed!"_

Wave, who was flushing with embarrassment, chased him down the half-pipe, "Enlil, I will make a _bald_ eagle out of you!"

"RACIST!"

The echidna and the fox stared at the both of them, chasing each other about the rooftop, with mirroring looks of bewilderment before shrugging their shoulders. They continued to spar while Wave finally landed a hit, and the both of them settled on a temporary truce (namely, Wave would not tease him about his IQ, while he wouldn't tease her about the one-sided relationship she had once had with Speedy Kuku).

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know what happened yesterday, would you?" he asked the fox.

"Oh, Caleb explained this to me while he was hiding from Shadow in the attic. When empaths drink aloe vera, they loose control over themselves and their powers, so not only does their frequency increase, but the intensity over their emotions affects everyone else in their proximity. Caleb said he's made some pretty horrible mistakes while under aloe influence."

"Ah, that would explain the mood swings yesterday. I'm surprised Shadow didn't have to see a shrink."

"That's because our resident shrink is crazy too. Plus Shadow can handle it, he's a big boy."

Knuckles blocked another one of Tails' punches before looking at the time, "Oh damn. I've got to meet up with Sue in a bit. Where's Shadow?"

"Here," the hedgehog replied, walking back into their little sparring arena. "Thanks Knuckles, alright Tails. Battle stance once again."

This time, Shadow's attacks had ferocity and speed from the get-go. There was no gradual accumulation in level that had had come to expect from him, and Tails was overwhelmed by the brutality of the attacks. He knew that if he tried to block one of his blows he could break a bone, so he was continuously dodging. That was when he realised something.

Tails let the pain phase through him once again, making sure to attack right after he had blocked one of Shadow's blows, twisting at new angles so that Shadow couldn't anticipate what he was doing. One particularly fierce charge caught him right in the chest, sending him across the length of the battle field and slamming into the glass skylight. Tails sat there, nursing his pained back. This blow would have been considered a serious attack on Shadow's part, as if he was ventilating his anger on the young kitsune. It was far too serious for play-fighting.

Wave and Jet, who had witnessed the attack, hissed and made small sympathetic noises. That looked like it _really _hurt. She could see Tails, roughed up and bloody, shaking as he slowly got to his feet. She was even more amazed when the fox started laughing, it sounded a little maniacal, but he definitely sounded happy about the situation.

When Tails raised his head, instead of seeing the blubbering tears she had expected, she spied a fierce grin with fire in those beautiful baby blue eyes.

"I got you to use your right hand!"

Shadow smiled at the young fox, giving him an affirming nod.

She'd never had more respect for the young fox than she had right at that moment.

* * *

><p><em>Where Is My Mind? <em>by Yoav feat. Emily Browning

* * *

><p>Chills wracked Tails' spine when he heard the voice, the voice of the person who had been haunting him for the last month, laughing at his pain. But now… now his words confused him.<p>

_What is he __**doing**__ here?_

Wave readied her hand over a pistol kept under Shadow's bench, Tails had a spanner gripped tighter in his hand, Shadow readied himself to a fight, but it was Sonic who reacted first. He sped over to MarDean and punched him right in the face, bullet wounds and casts aside.

"Get the _fuck _out! _Right now!_" the blue hedgehog yelled at him.

Shadow tugged at Sonic's wrist and shook his head, pointing to MarDean's obvious injuries, plus the fact that he was unarmed. Sonic didn't care, he was fighting against Shadow's restraints, but his emotional anger couldn't fight Shadow's level-headedness.

"I will. I just need to have a quick word with Prower."

"Go then," Tails said, his tone betraying no emotion.

"I'm sorry, for all I've done."

Tails snarled fiercely. _How __**dare**__ he ask forgiveness after all that he's done!_

"Your apology is dirt beneath my shoes! I'd never accept it after what you've done to me!"

MarDean nodded in acceptance, "I understand, and I wasn't expecting you to act any differently. I just wanted you to know I am."

"Screw you!" Sonic growled.

MarDean ignored Sonic, focusing his gaze on Tails, "After you did this to me," he gestured to his wounds with his free hand, "and _didn't _kill me, like I would have if I were you, and in the exact same position, you definitely proved to me that are good, maybe even _better_ beings than the rest of us."

"Tails!" Sonic yelled in outrage, "When were you going to tell me that this bastard attacked you again?"

Tails ignored Sonic, but just stared at MarDean, expecting him to continue. The tides had definitely turned. Once upon a time, Tails was just another bully victim for this once ten-fingered teenager. Now, MarDean was regarding Tails with an immense amount of respect.

"So I'm apologising, not for all the injuries I have caused you, or your friend, because I know that's unforgiveable. I'm apologising for ever thinking that your species were monsters, when mine is really, no different."

Tails still wasn't happy about this. Call him petty, but he really wanted to hate MarDean, not just because of the physical harm, but for all that he stood for. Now that he was seeing the error of his ways, Tails didn't want to let that seething hatred go. But… it was the right thing to do…

"I have something to give to you," MarDean said, rummaging in his pockets. He pulled out a necklace with a pendant of white feathers and a sparkling blue opal that seemed very familiar to Tails. "My father looted this necklace from your mother during The Massacre. I thought you should have it back." **(v)**

Tails stepped forward cautiously and snatched the necklace out of MarDean's grasp, a clear picture in his mind of his mother who had been playing hide-and-seek with him before The Massacre began. So the next words he forced out had to be the hardest thing he'd ever said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"And… I forgive you," he murmured, turning around and walking back to his bench, "for thinking in that sick, distorted way you did about us."

MarDean nodded, and then proceeded to hobble out of the garage, an aura of tension disappearing with him. When he was gone, Sonic rushed over to his little brother and hugged him fiercely, "I can't believe you did that! I was seconds from ripping the rest of his fingers off."

"That was very good of you," Shadow approved, "I would not have been so lenient of a man like that."

He felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder, Wave's feather's tickling the side of his neck. She didn't need to say anything; he could see the emotions she couldn't convey in words in her eyes. He stared at the necklace in his hands, a wave of warmth he hadn't felt since he was a child enveloping him, as if it wasn't Sonic's embrace warming him, but his mother's.

* * *

><p>kobiee; <em>A peek into Tails' infinite playlist.<em>

* * *

><p><em>"Lights out,<br>I still hear the rain,  
>These images that fill my head,<br>Now keep my fingers from making mistakes,  
>Tell my voice what it takes,<br>To speak up,  
>Speak up,<br>and keep my conscience clean when I wake."_

Tails swayed his hips, using a screwdriver and a wrench as drumsticks to beat against Shadow's toolbox while he tested out the new stereo system for the garage. The music thrummed through his body, electrifying his senses and splitting his face into a grin. The guitar and the upbeat tune forcing his body to move on its own.

Using the wrench as a microphone, he belted out the next chorus while dancing around his workbench like a loon;

_"Don't make this easy,  
>I want you to mean it,<br>Jasey. (say you'll mean it)  
>You're dressed to kill,<br>I'm calling you out, (don't waste your time on me)."_

"Wow, I didn't think _All Time Low_ was your thing."

"Ah, well Sonic got me into this awesome band called _Crush 40_ and there was a link to _All Time Low_ on _Youtube_ and-_Ahh!_" Tails flushed with mortification, noticing that Wave had perched herself on her regular spot. That was so embarrassing, having his crush watching him dance around like a maniac.

"You sing pretty well, Kitty."

"Shut up!" he cried as the next song came on and his eyes widened, as did Wave's.

"I _love _this song!" they cried in tandem.

Before either of them were aware, they were using their work tools as microphones and screaming the words at the top of their lungs, dancing around his workstation like it was a stage.

_"I feel like dancing tonight,  
>I'm gonna party like it's my civil right,<br>(everybody get kinda awesome).  
>It doesn't matter where; I don't care if people stare, (Woah!)<br>'Cause I feel like dancing tonight."_

In the corner of the garage, there Jet and Sonic sat, recording the two mechanics acting like total idiots as they rocked out to the song.

"Man, those two are going to be together by the end of summer," Jet observed, to which Sonic just gave a complacent nod, watching as Tails' eyes lit up in a way they hadn't for a long time.

_"Everybody getting kind of crunk,  
>I think some dude just grabbed my junk, (Woah!)<br>Now I know how Ke$ha must be feelin',  
>(Like.. what's with everyone?)<br>Bros try to turn me upside down.  
>I put a keg tap to my mouth,<br>But that's okay, I'm dancin' on the ceiling._

_"'Cause I've got the groove,_  
><em>I'll bust a move; just try and stop me.<em>

_"I feel like dancing tonight,_  
><em>I'm gonna party like it's my civil right,<em>  
><em>(everybody get kinda awesome).<em>  
><em>It doesn't matter where; I don't care if people stare, (Woah!)<em>  
><em>'Cause I feel like dancing tonight."<em>

"Until then, they're going to have to deal with all these romance speculations," Sonic smirked as he uploaded the video to Youtube. "Man, we are so dead."

"Worth it," Jet smirked, hitting the 'enter' key.

**Fox-trot and Wave of Babylon freaking out in the garage to **_**All Time Low**_**- **89,403,261 hits.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes<strong>

**(i) **See Chapter 15: Save Tonight, under the section _What Makes You Beautiful_ by One Direction_._

**(ii)** See Chapter 37: Stupid Cupid EVENT, under the section viii. **'Hero'** – Caleb Heartnet.

**(iii) **Omega says this a lot in _Sonic Heroes._

**(iv) **See Chapter 5: The Heart You Stole, under the section _Whataya Want From Me_ by Adam Lambert.

**(v) **See Chapter 1: Skin and Sin, under the section _All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)_ by Bullet For My Valentine.

You guys that have read _It's a Technician Thing_ know that I associate Tails with the band _All Time Low_ and happen to love the prospect of **Youtube** hits. This is my new favourite song, even though it's pretty old now.

1st Song: _Jasey Rae_

2nd Song: _I feel like dancin'_

Next chapter drabble choices:-

**1. **Amy comforts Cream about Wave and Tails' developing relationship. (hurt/comfort)

**2. **Tails visits Caleb's second job at Rosetti Art Store on an errand from Shadow. (general)

**3. **Sonic, Knuckles and Julie-Su are catching up in a bar, unfortunately, Knuckles can't hold his liquor. (humor/romance)

**ღ**


	44. Counting Opportunities

**domi|note**

Listen, _I _like Cream. But _Wave_ doesn't. So don't bash me.

I have changed my mind. In my head Caleb's voice sounds more like Alex Gaskarth. Arly's voice actor sounds like Neon Hitch.

**take future note:- **Tails' power was taken from _Tails' Luck_ (with permission) from **Skullfox.**

Thanks to **Undead009**, **Sturm and drang**, **HalfWright**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Exploder**, **RuningWitSizorz** and **Taichi L. Yagami** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>Respect for the truth is an acquired taste. <em>~Mark Van Doren, _Liberal Education_, 1943  
>...<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day  
><strong>_.  
>Chapter Forty Four<br>_.  
>"Is this what it feels like? Finding out, that I've got the guts to say anything? Feels like breaking out, when I can give up my reputation. Finally I can see, honestly, I've got the guts to say anything."<br>_...  
>I want it allWe will rock you Mash Up _by Queen and Armageddon

* * *

><p>The call reverberated through the Black Arms, echoing off the walls and alerting Wave, Caleb and the rabbit to Tails' cry. The rabbit looked up cautiously, shocked when Tails appeared before her, red-faced but determined.<p>

"My goodness, Tails. What?" Cream said.

"I need you to be my girlfriend."

…

"_What?"_

Recently Wave had consulted Tails about helping to fix Extreme Gear as well from the safety of his garage instead of advertising her own business, which would be catastrophic, considering the fact that Eggman was still after the Babylon Rogues, and the only reason they hadn't been arrested yet was because they couldn't arrest them during Extreme Gear competitions (because they were raking in most of the viewers) and he hadn't been able to pin-point their accommodations (or if he had, then he hadn't acted on it since Metal Sonic's appearance). Wave wouldn't _want_ anyone to know where they were staying anyway, because reporters were nosey bastards and she had had enough of them for a lifetime.

Their arrangement went like this; Tails would access the clientele's problem and assign Wave the maximum of ten (she said she could finish way more than that) Extreme Gear jobs a day (he wouldn't allow her to have anymore (even though she insisted, she knew he was just trying to be considerate)) to bring in her share of the money for accommodation/food/bills/ect instead of working odd jobs like Jet and Storm. The two males of the Babylon Trio had mostly been working with Rapidi Solis alongside Silver, Sonic and Caleb for the time being, because delivering stuff was something they were very good at. They also competed in extra Underground races for extra income. Sometimes Storm would work alongside Knuckles at various construction sites, and Jet worked the routes through antique stores and determined their real value, using his knowledge on stolen treasure to buy and sell to gain profit. He had a very slick tongue… when no one was threatening to cut it out, that is.

All in all, the Babylon Rogue's finance situation was now secure, and all they had to do was save up for a new ship… or steal one, either way.

Although Wave loved speaking to Tails about a whole manner of things; Extreme Gear, mechanics, aerodynamics, physics, chemistry, music, school (or ex-school in her case), fighting style, history, mythology (Enlil, did he _love_ his mythology), she never found herself speaking about the real reason they had come to Soleanna in the first place.

She trusted Tails with a manner of things; Extreme Gear being one of them, her vulnerabilities, that one secret involving Chase the swan, but the rest of it, she kept to herself, because she'd only come to realise this a while ago, but she unintentionally let her barriers down around Tails. Jet had teased her about it when she had witnessed Tails and Shadow fighting on the rooftop ("Oh, is he alright?" "Are you worried he's injured, Wave? Wanna play nurse?" "I've got a spanner in my pocket; wanna see if it can cause a skull fracture?" "No, ma'am.") She hated to admit that Jet was right, _so_ she wouldn't do it out loud, but slowly, over the time that she'd come to know the two-tailed rebel, he'd started to tap at the bulletproof glass she kept around herself. When he'd gained her respect, that tap became a crack. When he'd gained her affection, that crack became a glass cobweb of ice splinters.

There was only one person before the fox that she had had these feelings for, and that hadn't turned out the way she'd wanted it to. He taught her to reinforce her glass barriers with steel and a thousand foreboding locks.

_Trust your family, and no one else._

But…

Tails had melted the steel down, he'd picked the locks, and if she wasn't careful… he was going to smash the glass.

So, in her opinion, Tails was a delight to have around. He was smart, witty –thanks to the influence of _some_ rather 'snippy' characters- intelligent, but still retained cute, gentlemanly traits like consideration, empathy and general kindness that was lost on their generation. Having _Cream_ around however, was a terror.

She'd come to know the little angel, through the many conversations she'd been having with Tails that she'd _interrupted_.

_Rather rudely, I might add, _which was a hypocritical statement, since anyone describing Wave's personality in one word would have immediately jumped to 'rude' as well. She hung her head and placed some headphones on whenever Cream jumped into the conversation, mentioning something that she had Tails had done together a long time ago, so she could no longer involve her input. It seemed that Tails was oblivious to the crafty way that Cream shaped her words, hypnotising him with her big brown eyes. It made Wave sick.

_But I know I can't admit that out loud, because if I do, everyone will think I'm slandering an angel. _

So Wave immediately started to craft her words expertly as well, so the conversation changed back into something Tails and Wave could understand, but the rabbit could not. So Cream and Tails had an orphanage near the mines? What kind of mines? Could she change the topic to sulphur and minerals? Yes she could. So Tails used to be into origami? Did Cream know her basic Chun-nan history? Did she know who the creator of origami was? Could she explain their culture as well as Wave could? So Cream really loved Extreme Gear racing at Sega Carnival? Did she know that Wave had won the world wide _championship_ as a representative of Shamar there?... Three times? No, she didn't think so.

When Cream caught onto the fact that Wave was doing this on purpose, she started giving her dirty looks behind Tails' back. Wave would have been mature about it, but who was she kidding? She stuck out her tongue.

Wave didn't really understand the emotion that took over her whenever Cream decided to invade her private little moments with Tails, but… she didn't really want to believe Caleb when he explained it to her.

_I mean… _she thought, _what is __**jealousy**__ to __**me?**_

She was _Wave_ the swallow, mechanic of the infamous Babylon Rogues, the best Extreme Gear team this side of the universe. They lived under the dynasty of incredible ancestors, a heritage unbeatable in grandeur and excellency. _She_ had won countless championships, was deemed a genius from the age of two, and now held the title of 'Best Extreme Gear technician _in the __**world**_'. She was beautiful, skilled, talented…

_So what is this_ _**insecurity?**_

This stupid, but rather intense, feeling was slowly taking over her mind, and… she didn't like it. Not one tiny, little bit.

_Loosing to a rabbit. She's a thirteen-year-old little girl who just entered high-school and is the 'cute' one among her friends. She gets unremarkable grades and has a crush on Miles 'Tails' Prower. She can't defend herself, and she wouldn't know the inside of Extreme Gear mechanisms from a broken microwave. _

So why did she make Wave feel so horrible about herself?

Cream was loved by all her friends.

_I only had Jet and Storm in school. _

She isn't bullied.

_I always was. _

She's 'the adorable' one.

_I never was. _

She's innocent.

_I haven't been for a long, __**long**__ time. _

She's been friends with Tails since they were children.

_I wish. _

And she did. The truth had to be that she was envious of Cream, because of her personality and the fact that she had known Tails longer. Chemistry was nothing compared to a long lasting friendship that had somehow managed to survive in an environment like this, despite going to different schools and living in different parts of the city.

She growled, slamming the panel of the board she was working on down. She didn't want to deal with this now. Just because she now had the time to think about it, didn't mean she wanted to. Caleb, who was perched on her workbench scribbling in his sketchbook. Ever since he had gotten better, he'd been sketching, drawing and painting non-stop. Rouge had said it was 'repressed artistic tension', or something stupid like that, after all, Caleb hadn't drawn in almost three years.

"I need you to be my girlfriend," Tails repeated.

"Oh Tails," Caleb twittered, feigning mock-embarrassment, "This is so sudden."

The golden kitsune rolled his eyes, before turning to Cream with expectant eyes.

"Why?" she asked nervously.

"Because-!" he said, but he was interrupted by the newly installed stereo system started blasting one of Shadow's new tracks.

It was like a scene from one of those action movies Jet and Storm were really fond of. The music, with a heavy bass beat accompanied the movements of two memorable individuals among Soleanna's crime syndicate; Scourge the hedgehog and Fiona Fox.

Scourge tore off his sunglasses and performed a slow motion movie star hair flick, grinning ridiculously. Wave looked around trying to locate the hidden cameras.

"Hey," Fiona purred, making Tails stiffen uncomfortably. Wave tilted her head to side, wondering what this vixen did to cause Tails to react like that.

"H-hi," he replied.

"Oh man, I'm getting uncomfortable," Caleb murmured, probably because of all the conflicting personalities and emotions flying around, trying to slip off the bench, but Wave grabbed onto the edge of his flannel and stopped him from leaving.

"We've come to bring a message to the Grand Prix competitors," Scourge declared, "so go tell Blue, Knuckle-head, Sunshine and the other avians to get down here."

"On it," Caleb said, darting past Wave and heading up the stairs, pausing just a second when Scourge's voice stopped him.

"Come back when you've got them, Heartnet. I've got a few messages for you as well."

The fox narrowed his eyes suspiciously before climbing the stairs. Fiona strutted over to the workbench Wave was working on, which Cream and Tails were leaning against precariously.

"So, this the girlfriend you boasted about the last time we met up?" the red fox raised an eyebrow curiously, cocking her hip to the side.

"I didn't _boast,_" Tails growled. He looked relieved until Fiona's eyes caught sight of Wave working on another Extreme Gear behind the workbench. The avian's eyes held hers for a few moments and Fiona smiled. Wave's eyebrows furrowed as she brushed her bangs out of her face, turning back to her Gear.

"My, my. Hello, Wave of Babylon," the vixen purred, eyes darting to Scourge. The violet swallow was not an idiot; there was silent body language between the two that meant the both of them were conspiring silently. She had perfected this language with Jet. Storm was still a little iffy about it, but he got the general idea. Before she understood what was happening, still dazed and angry from Tails' outburst before, Scourge was in front of her, pulling her bangs away from her eyes.

"How anyone hasn't managed to snap you up yet, I'll never know," the green hedgehog cooed, smirking when Wave snarled and swiped his hand away. "Ooh, I like 'em feisty."

"Get away from me," Wave snarled, her hand gripping a nearby spanner tighter. She didn't know why Scourge was doing this, but she knew he wasn't being sincere. There was something… odd, about this situation, especially considering Fiona was not butting in. They didn't have any quarrel with the Suppression Squad, so she couldn't understand why he was trying to mind-fuck her like this.

"There no special guy in your life, rogue?"

"Yeah! And he's not you, so fuck off you green needle-mouse, and leave me out of your schemes," she snapped, pushing some frayed wires towards him and electrocuting the intruding hedgehog. The hedgehog ignored the sting and kept on advancing on her until-

"Get _away_ from her, Scourge."

Wave's eyes widened, and if that tone of voice –from _Tails_ no less- hadn't been the sexiest thing she had ever heard, she hadn't yet been given the gift of hearing. Her body shivered as she turned to see Tails, who was radiating a calm aura of fury, blue eyes glinting dangerously. Scourge wasn't deterred though and the corner of his lips turned up in a smirk, facing his girlfriend once again, "Happy, babe?"

"Much," the red vixen replied before jerking her head in the direction of the new comers. Silver and Amy had come to, just for kicks. "Hi Sonic."

"Hi, Fi," the hedgehog replied woodenly, producing a fake smile as he nodded at Scourge. The rest of them acknowledged each other silently with different looks. Wave registered some history between some of these strange characters, but decided to ignore it and listen to what Scourge had to say.

"As a show of good sportsmanship, we've decided to clue you guys in on what's happening in the next race of the Grand Prix," the green hedgehog declared, and Sonic made a disapproving sound.

"Why would you wanna help us?" the blue hedgehog scowled, and the blue eyes of Scourge flashed with something menacing.

"_Because_ –you whiney bitch- it's no longer in the Suppression Squad's interest to stay in the competition. Yeah, money. A whole _shitload_ of money. But seriously? We don't need that much to get by. Life was fine before all of this crap started happening and now the racism is _really _starting to get on my nerves. Connections I've had with the underground don't wanna associate with us anymore because of it, and it's all the Prix's fault."

"So," Fiona took over, "we're gonna be fighting it out 'til the end, but we're not gonna stake everything on winning this thing for the sake of money we can get working the trade with aloe vera or HGO guns for a few years. Ya gets?"

"We get," Sonic replied, seemingly a little more forgiving towards the pair, "what do you have to offer?"

"So cold, Blue," the green hedgehog teased before crossing his arms over his scarred chest. "We've got a pal of Prower's on the lookout."

"What kind of pal?" Tails asked cautiously.

"Used to be friends with a 'MarDean' guy, until some staged attack on you ended up with a long term leg injury." Tails grimaced, a look of remembrance flashing in his eyes.

"Plus," Fiona added, "each of ya have got an underground bounty on your head if you're brought to the right people. Better watch out for anyone that works for Mammoth Mogul, Marsali Scottmen, Jules Hedgehog," Sonic and Scourge prickled at the name, "or Claudel Winchester." Caleb choked, though he covered it up with a cough. "These people would include The Destructix-"

"I'm sorry," Jet interrupted, "who?"

"They're a bunch of mercenaries that fight for the highest bidder. We hung out with 'em for a bit, but those jokers didn't like our style," Scourge growled.

"They're made up of Lightning Lynx. He used to come from The Four Houses, which are all made up of Chun-nan-trained assassins, who are controlled at the moment, by Winchester. There's Sergeant Simian, who's been hired part time as a guard at the Egg Dome." Silver and Caleb shared a brief high-five. "Flying Frog, this guy… ugh… There's Sleuth Dawg and Predator Hawk."

"_What?" _all three of the Babylon Rogues shouted at the same time.

"That prick from Devine Wings Academy," Wave growled, clenching her fists. She'd be _damned_ if she let him get the upper hand on her.

"Bottom line is; don't trust _anyone. _Chances are that anyone in your next race could be an enemy… more likely, six out of the seven people in your race will be makin' sure you loose."

"Thanks for the information," Sonic replied curtly, "we'll make sure we don't demolish you two in the races."

"Much obliged," the green hedgehog replied and Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow and Amy started ascending the stairs again. The green hedgehog turned to Wave, "I'm actually meant to be tellin' you where your next deal with Kylok the koala is. So whenever you want it, just give me a shout, because I get ring for showing you where he's hiding out," he quickly wrote down a set of digits before he turned to Silver and Caleb.

"What did you need to tell me?" Caleb asked.

"I've got two messages for you, but if the Underground had mail boxes, yours would be filled to the brim," the hedgehog stated, making the brown fox grunt and roll his eyes. Tails and Wave were actually trying to inch closer to hear the conversation. "First one is from Mytho. You must be pretty special if someone like _him_ is going through the _Underground_ to find you."

What? Dammit, she needed to Google these people.

Caleb snorted, eyes narrowing, "Think of it as the relationship between a high-roller and his favourite whore."

"Which one are you?" the green hedgehog asked cheekily before Caleb raised an eyebrow and smirked back. There was some unspoken dialogue between the two that Wave couldn't care to understand. Hadn't these two been on opposite ends of a gang war a few weeks back? 'Means to an end' meant everything in the Underground. 'Nothing personal' really _was_ nothing personal.

"The second one is from a fraction of The Four Houses."

"Which one?"

Dammit, more politics to learn.

"The Yagyu Clan. A part time member wants to speak with you… in person. Preferably at the Crisis City Cemetery at sun down on the evening of the fourth race."

"Wow," Caleb rolled his eyes, "he's got this all planned out."

"'She'." Scourge corrected.

"'_She?'" _the fox asked confused, "She?" he shrugged, "Alright then. I'll look into it."

"Bye Prower. Good luck with your little girlfriend," the vixen smirked. "You really surprised me there, Kitty. I thought you had a thing for older women."

Tails flushed embarrassingly and waved her off. It was almost sunset now.

"I need some fresh air," Caleb declared. "Here, Creampuff, I'll walk you to your bakery. Come Silver, we'll grab those weird sugar cookies you like so much."

As soon as the three left, both technicians lunged for the laptop, trying to sate their feral curiosity.

"Alright!" Tails cried, after his tails had been pulled one too many times, "Start off with the search on Mytho."

"Do you think simply typing in that name is going to come up with results?" Wave rolled her eyes, typing it in anyway.

"What does that say? 'GUN'? Look at that!"

Wave read the article;

**"Mytho Truscott (20) is a Mobian wolf born in Holaska, but is a resident of Downunda; currently the only candidate for the GUN Commander position, after his well received adopted sister, Arielle Truscott, went missing two years ago. **

**"As of seven months ago, he has become the highest ranking commander in Downunda and faces no opposition to admitting the position when the current leader, Abraham Tower, retires. Truscott has been praised for his incredible loyalty to GUN combat technique and strategy that has kept Downunda safe from hostile neighbouring nations. Most believe he received his skill level from well-loved father Nathaniel Truscott, Abraham Tower's predecessor, who was assassinated two years before his daughter disappeared.**

**"Currently, Truscott has travelled to Soleanna in an attempt to create a peace treaty with the Duke which could be successful considering Downunda's immediate assistance after the events from four years ago seized the ocean city." **

"Man… this is screwed up."

What had Heartnet _done_ to gain the attention of _both_ candidates for the GUN Commander position? He must have been one of those attention seeking bastards in school.

"Finding information on Mammoth Mogul is going to be impossible unless you actually break into his compound. There isn't going to be any information on Marsali. You're actually going to have to speak to some of the followers to get a better understanding about her," Tails explained. "I do know a little about Jules though," the fox bit his lip, and Wave believed he wasn't revealing everything. "He's a rich noble that received his money through his wife, Aleena. He believes he's entitled to the savings of his sons and daughter as well, but Sonia was killed in The Massacre-"

"Is she the one that was in the painting Sonic was having a spaz over?"

"Yes and his sons are 'supposedly' dead as well. They need to sign over the rights to their savings if Jules is to access the money, but he hasn't been able to locate them so far."

"Even if one of them is in the news every week?" Wave grinned, making Tails smile as well.

"That sounds right."

"There's little to no information about Claudel, meaning that if you want to know more, you're best bet is to ask Caleb, and I doubt he'd want to speak about his old man right now, considering this 'Black Widow' business that's got him riled up."

"What?" she asked.

There was yelling upstairs, and the distinct sound of Sonic and Knuckles screaming at each other for some reason. Caleb came rushing down a few minutes later, taking off into the night. Sonic appeared later, grabbing his Extreme Gear and stomping as he crossed the threshold of the garage. Caleb seemed a little out of it when he was running, Sonic seemed furious. Tails was curious.

"Never mind," Tails sighed, waving it off and closing the computer. "Wanna grab some pizza? I think its Shadow's turn to cook."

"Yeah, we better fill up before we pretend we want to eat whatever he's pulled out of the garbage."

* * *

><p><em>kobiee; <em>**Amy comforts Cream about Wave and Tails' developing relationship.**

* * *

><p>Unfortunately, Amy and Cream had had the same idea about Shadow's cooking and appeared at the same parlour.<p>

Jealousy filled up Cream's mind and clenched her small fists when she saw the way that Wave regarded him with softened expressions, and he looked up to her like Cream had never seen him to do anyone but Fiona. Amy watched her friend tense up as Tails and Wave took one of the booths with the dim lighting, watching in silent displeasure as the waiters came along and lit up the candles on their table. Wine for Wave, juice for Tails.

Cream was never the kind to bitch about other girls, but Wave had her riled. There was just something about her that she didn't like, being competition for Tails' affections (and winning) aside.

"It could have been me…" the rabbit murmured and Amy nodded solemnly.

They watched silently as Wave laughed at something Tails said, no doubt only funny to people with their brain capacity… or maybe they were just being normal and Wave was laughing because he liked the way her voice sounded when she was happy, or the way her lips curved when she was content, or the blue diamond gleam in her eyes when she was excited and speaking about something that the normal person didn't understand nor _want_ to understand.

"There are plenty of fish in the sea," Amy murmured.

Cream knew what that meant. After all, Amy had been chasing the same guy since she was at the orphanage. If _she _didn't see any hope in the situation, then what was Cream to do?

"I don't want a fish, I want a fox," Cream sighed. "What happened to your unwavering optimism?"

"Cream, I'm not trying to be mean, I'm trying to be honest," the pink hedgehog replied. "Don't you know what they say about most foxes?"

"No…"

"They only have _one_ real chance to fall in love. Once they find their mate, they're bonded for life," she looked down, fiddling with the chequered white and red tablecloth. "Cosmo died before Tails could say 'I love you' and Fiona only ever saw Tails as a child. And then…"

"Along comes a girl who isn't only beautiful and talented, but challenging and shares all those nerdy interests in mechanics and science that he does," Cream sighed, "I know. How can I compete?"

"You can," Amy assured, taking her hands and encasing them in her own. "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be, just don't completely rule out the possibility of heartbreak. It's going to hurt."

The rabbit's eyes lowered, darkened chocolate in the dim lights of the restaurant and the emotion that had been slowly squeezing her heart made it ache once more as she watched Tails pull back one of Wave's bangs, only to receive a raised eyebrow and flick to the forehead.

"More than it does already?"

"… Far more."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note: <strong>

I am far too lazy to figure out three prompts for the next chapter, so I'm having a mini competition! Anyone that fills in the **CENSORED **with funny words that make me laugh get to have their prompt answered. The deadline is April Fools Day.

So when **CENSORED **happened and **CESORED** he pulled out his gun and aimed at **CESORED** instead **CENSORED **and **CENSORED **leading to **CESORED**, **CENSORED **and buttsex.

Ciao darlings.

**ღ**


	45. Fool Me Once EVENT

**domi|note**

Thanks to **DontCrossTheFox**,** LordCooler**, **Taichi L. Yagami**, **Undead009**,** Ficfan412**, **Exploder**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **HalfWright**, **Ija**, **Subzero Inferno** and **TheFunGuy** for reviewing the last chapter.

**warning:- **We're not just _smashing_ the fourth wall, we're going to chop it up into tiny little pieces, eat it, regurgitate it and then set it on fire.

**disclaimer:- **Anything that doesn't belong to me, doesn't belong to me. There are just too many references to other things at the moment.

**Enjoi… **

* * *

><p><em>When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. ~Mark Twain<br>_...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**_.  
>Chapter Forty Five<br>_.  
>"Strange. Strange. In your perfect world. So strange, strange. I feel so absurd in this life."<br>_...  
>Disco <em>by Metro Station

* * *

><p>Somewhere in the (not so) sunny country of Australia, two bored kids were replaying <em>Assassins Creed II<em> in an attempt to get one-hundred percent("Damn you, Ezio! It's _impossible _to miss the fucking haystack!")while the girl's lonely -ever so lonely- laptop lie untouched with a half finished copy of _Anthem of Our Dying Day_ Chapter Forty Four screaming, "Finish me! You stupid bitch," to which the fantastic author replied, "I shall not! For inspiration eludes me", to which the digital disaster replied, "Fuck you," as if an electronic device could talk without the consent of its masters.

At that thought, said author looked around to make sure that the rest of her electronics, such as the iron or the toaster were not rebelling either. Her PS2 had received a time out for being out of date, and refusing to play such classics such as _Sonic Riders _or _Crash of the Titans_. A revolt in her own household would not do her well, especially when her only other means of entertainment was her trusty sketchbook… which happened to be missing at the moment.

"What about me?" the boy (I think) asked.

"Are you reading my mental monologue?" she asked, giving him a confused look.

"Yes," he replied, "you're writing it down on the computer after all."

To her surprise, her hands were slowly typing out her thoughts, which was an insult in itself because normally her train of thought was actually very fast, but at the moment it seemed to be running around circles like a headless-

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because you've been typing-"

Much to her chagrin, she had repeated the word 'Chicken' for the last three lines. The word taunted her; she hadn't had anything to eat for the last twenty-four hours.

_Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken parrot chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken Jet chicken chicken chicken chicken…_

"Oh _shut up, _Kobie. Nobody cares about your opinion anyway," she spat, getting up to prepare her breakfast/lunch/afternoon tea.

She continued watching her neighbour and co-writer running around the streets of Venice as a Florentine assassin dressed in an overly complicated red-white ensemble, doing dumb things like shove aside people holding boxes only to watch them drop, before there was an explosion and then a poof of smoke materialising in her lounge room.

Since this was a common occurrence, she sighed and then looked in her appointment book. It seemed that she _hadn't_ sold her soul to the devil yet, and maybe he was making another attempt to barter down the price. Or the grim reaper might have had a bone (LOL) to pick with her about disposing one too many bodies in the sewers instead of the cemetery where they belonged. So she was surprised to note that before her appeared her favourite Sonic OC, someone that she had been tinkering with the idea of since she was seven years old. Now that she was sixteen, it seemed that her characters had become as bitchy and mentally unstable as herself.

Kobie, being the coward that he was, hid behind the sofa and held up a cross, which had _also_ materialised out of nowhere. She _swore_ she hit her vampire hunting equipment in the attic where her rather nosey co-writer would not find it. She didn't want another incident like last time; she still had spaghetti stuck to her ceiling after all, "Begone foul creature!"

Domi rolled her eyes and turned to Caleb, "Is there a reason for the spontaneous combustion in my living room?" She turned her head to the sofa, which had caught on magical rainbow fire, courtesy of the POWER OF FICTION! (Batteries not included.)

"You know what this is about you manipulative asshat!" the fox growled, pulling out a small little white book decorated with pink polka dots and a picture of pink Converse sneakers. "Not only does reading the script from a flowery book from a cute little Asian shop called 'Morning Glory' make me feel emasculated, but then you insult me with the _content?_ What is _wrong _with you?"

"There, there," she said, grabbing Caleb's head and petting it, as one would a cat. He struggled out of her grasp, managing to slip out of it. His eyes darted over to the laptop. Kobie notices it before she did, but alas, the super fast reflexes that she had gifted Caleb with led to her demise. The fox snatched up the computer, and fled out the door yelling, "No! My life will not be controlled by a sadistic author and her weird obsession with fucking my life over! Is it too much to ask for a nice quiet life as the bartender at some strip club somewhere?"

"Yes!" both of them replied, to which Caleb promptly gave each other them the finger.

As both the author and the second co-author watched their Sonic OC disappear into the world of fanfiction with one of the most powerful tools of the literary universe (her USB and laptop) they wondered what havoc an OC who scored eighteen on the Mary-Sue test could possibly accomplish, and how they would go about righting this mistake…

And then they remembered that Assassins Creed was only eighty-five percent finished and she hadn't finished her breakfast.

* * *

><p><em>Therapy <em>by All Time Low

* * *

><p>Caleb was now sitting on the kitchen table of the Black Arms, having promptly returned a minute prior. At first he had needed the help of Lacy to break the fourth wall, but since he now had the all powerful USB and laptop, he could do it as much as he'd like. His body tingled with all of the evil possibilities that he could incur on this story.<p>

He spent a good hour perusing through the USB content, flipping through the picture files and discovering pictures of himself from 2005, which was _extremely _odd because he was born in the year 3218. He flipped through the music files and promptly copied everything to his own ipod. Then he ventured into uncharted territory and came out blushing and needing a cold, cold shower. Finally, he found the files to the future plans of _Anthem of Our Dying Day_ as she had fitfully named the folder (after an _amazing_ song) and browsed through what she had planned for them.

Tails sat down to eat his afternoon snack and tried to initiate conversation, but Caleb was too immersed in whatever was on the laptop, spending the entirety of it nibbling his claws or ripping out his hair. He was also noted to be talking to himself, saying odd things like 'How _dare_she,' and 'Oh, my screaming Chaos monkeys in glittering pink drag'.

Obviously some statements were more worrying than others.

He left the fox to his own devices, after he had tried to look over his shoulder and Caleb had simply hissed at him to go away (for his own sake, of course. He did _not_ want to see what was making Caleb so riled up).

At one point, the fox had broken down crying.

Wave tried to comfort him, but he simply pushed her away and swore revenge. Sweet, _bloody _revenge.

After he had pulled himself together, he closed all of the future plans to their story and opened the word document to the forty-third chapter.

He could accept the fact that his life was a figment of someone else's imagination, but he'd be damned if he didn't have _some_ control over what was happening. _First, _he would right all of the things that had gone wrong with his life, being the selfish git that he was. His father died from a 'tragic' car accident, and his mother raised both he and his sister in a prosperous loving home.

Then he realised something…

He hadn't met Arly.

That means that he wouldn't have made it in the art industry anyway, because he didn't have any courage or charisma. His artistic talent was not fuelled with his own emotions, making his work shallow and bland.

_Worst _than that, being a spoilt-rotten rich kid that had next to no social interaction, he wouldn't loose his virginity until he was at _least _twenty-three! LE GASP!

Alright, so he changed that so his mother sent him to GUN Academy… but why? The document refused to admit the words, because they had no logical reason behind it, and even being an artistic genius, he could not come up with a suitable reason for his mother to send him to GUN Academy. She would shelter him and love him; she would never let her dear baby go to 'the big mean military school'.

Fine! Say he became a badass and decided to run away from home to see what life was outside of the sheltered high class rich school that the Princess attended?

_What do you __**mean**__ 'DOES NOT COMPUTE?'_

He slammed his hand on the table, seething at the laptop in his grip. So fine, he brought back his father, so that the ignorant git could send him to GUN Academy. BUT WAIT! Bringing back his father meant the inevitable death of his mother. Shit. He growled and decided he would get back to that problem later.

_Let's try and save Arly. _

So when **CENSORED **happened and **CESORED** he pulled out his gun and aimed at **CESORED** instead **CENSORED **and **CENSORED **leading to **CESORED**, **CENSORED **and buttsex.

Wait, what?

He looked over the words he had typed, wondering how anal sex had wriggled its way into the equation at all. Among the complicated theories, anything replacing buttsex would ultimately equal Rebecca Black, which was probably ten times worse.

Unfortunately, his actions involving Arly surviving eventually led to Lottie's demise.

_Nice one, Heartnet. Some big brother you are. _

He then thought about reprogramming his own personality, but that involved _completely _rewriting both of his parent's histories. And re-writing his parent's history _could _lead to him not being born in the first place, so he didn't want to risk it, else he explode into a puff of non-existence.

In the end, the sound of Caleb banging his head against the table and chanting 'FML. FML. FML' could be heard throughout the entire building.

* * *

><p><em>DOCAMOCK<em> by Smashmouth

* * *

><p>So in the end, Caleb decided to leave his own history alone, deciding to get some help from Cesario so that he could re-write his life later. To vent his problems, he'd take it out on the inhabitants of the Black Arms for his selfish amusement.<p>

Something he _had_ found interesting unrelated to the _Anthem of Our Dying Day_ plot was a nice little folder titled _It's a Technician Thing, _in which he discovered the origin of Tails' dissatisfaction with chocolate and popcorn mixed together ("IT'S AN ABOMINATION!") and the abject fear that Jet possessed in getting his tongue cut out ("Someone's been watching too much _Death Silence_,") further more, he found the author's obsession with _Romantically Apocalyptic _and _Call of Duty_ worrying to an incredible extent. He'd also found a list of inspirations for their story, and was horrified to realise that _Dawn of the Dead_ and _Zombieland_ were on there. Recent internet searches also revealed that they would have to deal with something that was also result of the book _Hunger Games _and a fiction induced by the music of Marylin Manson.

He was worried to say the least.

He watched the blinking cursor of the half page, wondering what the write and what would happen if he did. He'd start off small and then figure it out from there.

'_Shadow walked into the living room and tripped over Sonic, who was lying on the floor.'_

Sonic was in fact, lying on the floor. Caleb was pleasantly surprised to see Shadow enter from the garage and –right on time- snag his foot on Sonic's leg and fall flat on his face. He grinned at all the evil he could still inflict all on the people that surrounded him.

Over the course of three hours, Caleb watched with a tape recorder as the inhabitants of the Black Arms Garage went absolutely nuts. Tails was forced to eat a Mars Bar, leading to the ultimate demise of Shadow's shoes, which were now filled with steaming hot ramen. Jet was (once again) running around Black Arms with Tails on his tail feathers, a comically large pair of tweezers in his hands under the impression he could trade some feathers for crackers. He didn't remember _how, _be he was pretty sure Shadow was the reason the fridge had exploded, and as for Amy being tied to the couch like some kind of virgin sacrifice… he couldn't remember either, nor did he _want _to. Knuckle's hiding place in the closet was the result of a combination of events involving spaghetti, an Xbox 360 console, a multi-coloured sex toy, one of Caleb's favourite books and a fresh batch of grapes. Storm was underneath the table in the foetal position, murmuring 'May Enlil save us' over and over again.

"IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS RATED PG-13, STOP _DOING _THAT!"

Even though programming his _own _personality was difficult, re-wiring everyone _else's _had been done with incredible ease. However, when he tried to turn them back, he panicked when he realised that he couldn't.

He slammed his fist on the table again trying to delete the document when something flashed on the screen.

"ACCESS DENIED."

"Why?" he asked the laptop, irritation blatant in his obvious screaming.

"The author is having too much fun with the prospect of you suffering for over ruling her. By the power of Wi-Fi connection, she has terminated your control and now proceeds to watch with amusement as you're threatened with aloe vera bottles."

"What? No!" he cried, watching as three floating bottles followed him around the kitchen before he promptly started running for his life as well.

He was vaguely aware of Tails painting Silver's claws a bright pink colour, Cream in the background screaming in mortification, Marine, who had been painted to resemble a zebra and Blaze who was speaking like a high school cheerleader with an IQ that matched her age.

He was so focused on making sure the bottles didn't catch him that he didn't notice the wall materialise out of absolutely nowhere, and he ran, smack dab into it. When he came to, a few minutes later, Shadow and Sonic were hovering over him like doctors at an operation. It might have been, because Caleb's head was pounding. In his hand was… was… an empty aloe vera bottle.

Out of absolutely nowhere, Shadow and Silver started fighting over Sonic, who had materialised a frilly pink Elizabethan dress and was fluttering his eyelashes behind an equally frilly, flowery fan. Well, it _seemed_ like they were fighting over Sonic, but were actually just spasmodically slapping each other and kicking each other's shins. He was absolutely sure that at one point Silver threw a conveniently placed laundry basket of Hannah Montana t-shirts, landing six meters away from his target. Somewhere in the room, wrestling became hugging each other and whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears.

"DOMINATE ME! CALL ME A SLUT!" he didn't know who said that, but it sounded suspiciously like Sonic.

_Fuck my life._

* * *

><p><em>Bad Dog (Easy does it Remix) <em>by Neon Hitch

* * *

><p>One aspect of the aloe vera hangover he had gotten used to was not remembering what he had done last night. It was just like any other hangover, except his moods were still hypersensitive… as well as other parts of his body.<p>

Around him, everyone else was waking up in a similar state, covered in chocolate spread or otherwise.

He winced when he tried to move, horrified.

"My…"

"What?" Tails, who was adorn in a purple toga and had had a monocle/swirly moustache drawn onto his muzzle, asked.

"My ass hurts."

There was a collective sense of dread between all of the men before everyone screeched, "IT WAS _SILVER!_"

"NO IT WASN'T!"

After Caleb discovered that his behind suffered because he'd fallen on his rear after tumbling down the stairs, a COMPLETELY _SEX-FREE_ act, he used the magical teleporting abilities of the laptop to return back to the real world.

In the human world, it was still afternoon or perhaps the teenagers had been doing the same thing for the entire weekend, which happened to be vegging out and playing video games. The only difference now was that Domi was pulling apart a packet of Oreos and Kobie was playing some kind of first-person shooter game.

They seemed totally at ease with the situation while he had suffered for the last few hours.

"Happy now?" the author asked, brown eyes twinkling with mischief.

"I _hate_ you."

"Would you like some cake?" she replied, holding it out and making him wonder where it had materialised for her.

He threw it out of her hands, "That cake is a fucking _lie!_"

"Alright!" she replied happily, "you're life is genetically engineered to suck. Not bad for a story planned whenever I have the free time."

"_Die."_

"U mad?"

"YES!"

"Aww, poor sweetheart," she smirked, pointing to the laptop.

"What's going to happen to the chapter I screwed over?" he asked, and Domi grinned and pulled out… a backup USB.

_odnjewndewdewdsd-__**fuck!**_

"Go on, shoo," she said; waving her hand dismissively and Caleb disappeared in a puff of fiction smoke.

"So, it's going to be like the chapter never happened?" Kobie asked. "Isn't that a waste of time?"

She rolled her eyes. Her blond best friend could be a little idiotic sometimes, "Don't worry about it. It's like…" she thought for a second, "like Sonic 06 all over again."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"I can do whatever I like!" she replied haughtily, "I'm the author."

Why did she keep Kobie around anyway? Welshscot, somewhere on the other side of the world, didn't give this much trouble.

Oh yes, she didn't keep him around, he climbed the tree in his backyard to reach her bedroom whenever he was bored. FML.

"Now that you've given him a taste of freedom, do you think he'll be back?"

"Not if I fill the USB with something much more scarring this time," she laughed deviously, downloading pictures from _In the Night Garden _and the Nyan Cat loop.

She found the corrupted document, highlighted the content, and hit delete.

* * *

><p>April Fools!<p> 


	46. The Second Hand Will Catch Us

**domi|note **

Thanks to **Pixelated Firefly** for beta-ing the chapter.

I'm going to do some writing experiments. Because my mind is all jumbled up at the moment.

Skip this chapter if you don't care for my OC. Another huge Caleb revelation. I think it's one of his last secrets! Gotta get them all out before the end of the Grand Prix.

**warning;- **YAOI content! Don't go complaining that I didn't warn you. No official characters were involved in that sense. Ch'yeah, and mature themes. Very mature themes. And LANGUAGE! Yes! But the warning's at the beginning of the story.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory will swell when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. ~Abraham Lincoln<br>_...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**_.  
>Chapter Forty Six<br>_.  
>"You remind me of the times, when I knew who I was. But still, the second hand will catch us, like it always does. Like it always does."<br>_...  
>Until the Day I Die<em> by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>My head felt like it was throbbing. It wasn't the first time I'd found myself with a migraine that just seemed too much to handle, when the only thing that I could do was grasp onto the hope (with fingers slicked with sweat and grease, while my limbs shake with pain and exhaustion) that the bitter thoughts and sharp emotions might ebb away into nothingness, so that I might squander my time by myself without interruption and rude mentionings of things I'd rather not talk about. But it just so happened that the <em>reason<em> for this brain-wracking in the first place was one of the thoughts I had been pulling apart, piece by piece. Among time dealing with ethics and political confrontations, it felt better to distance myself from people that oppressed me with those matters, and Mytho just happened to be one of those select few, thus leading to the ultimate demise of my brain cells.

_Should I see him, or not?_

I had two choices, as it was. (And wasn't that always the way? Choice A or B. There was never a C, or a G or a W or a Y.) Even in a society made of black, white and all kinds of grey, no one really cares for the shade in between, because truthfully enough, grey isn't even a colour, it's the mix between two shades. A hybrid. A mutt. A _mutant._ I could a) see Mytho right now. He's laid out the destination, the meeting place, Hell, he was even paying for the food, I knew. Why would I want to refuse? Or b) hide and wait for him to come to me. The latter sounded more appealing; after all, I had been running for years already. What's a few more?

I was a coward by nature, running away from my problems when they seemed too tough. It has always been that way from the moment I entered school, there has always been someone bigger and stronger to protect me. Mother. Arly. Ash. Rouge. Leilani. Mytho at one point. I didn't have anyone to rely on but Rouge and Leilani, but they couldn't protect me like they used to. I was not a child anymore. The times had passed far before I could grasp them, and learn to enjoy life in innocence. I had nowhere to run now, and I had someone to take care of, so I'd stayed and made barriers around myself. I'd changed our names, I'd dyed my fur, I'd erased any perceivable records, but… the only hope to my salvation was to break down the barriers _myself_; to run into the line of fire, just for a little while so that I could _live_.

Not this shitty existence of sickness and lies and monotonous work. I was _sick _of living in fear, but I couldn't bring myself to break free.

It was going to change.

He promised. _He. Promised. _

Or did he want me to act as a temporary shield, so that I might find absolution in death?

And I was an empath. There was sincerity in his words. In his aura. In his colours. So did I have any reason to mistrust him? In truth… many… but I couldn't dwell on that now, with a strand of poison the only thing between me and the life I had _always_ wanted. Out of this hell-hole, and living it up like the greats I desired to be like. Leonardo Da Vinci. Picasso. Rossetti**(i)**. Rembrandt van Rijn. William Turner. Andy Warhol. Frida Kahlo. Pierre Auguste Renoir. Artemisia Gentileschi… My mother.

Of course, most of them were insane. But what was a little insanity for pleasure? Fame? Greatness? All I'd have to do was tell a few lies. And that wasn't anything new. It came with the business. It came with siblings you want to keep innocent just a little bit longer. For your dearest friend, who you know would leave you as soon as you uttered that deep, dark secret.

I thought that Arly had accepted me. I thought she really did feel the things she was so good- even better than I- at faking that I put my trust in her hands. Put my _heart_ in her hands…

And look where that had got me.

Cutting ties had been a good thing to do, save for important, trustworthy people like Leilani, Rouge and Ash (who I'd yet to see yet, for fear he might not like what I'd become). I'd trusted Mytho once as well, and it may not have ended with his demise but it _hurt_ pretty fucking badly. That was why I was reluctant to see him today, after all, how did I know it was not business as usual? He _could_ (and I'm hoping he _was_) be here to discuss the witness protection program. Maybe they'd received enough funding to send Lottie to Downunda for schooling? Our second choice was, of course, to leave her with Leilani, but she was not allowed to legally take care of a person less than eighteen years of age under permanent residence. The GUN agent found her quiet joy in humouring my little sister when I didn't have the time to take care of her, which was a _lot. _But there was _also_ the possibility that Mytho _just_ wanted to shove his success in my face, to belittle me, spill my secrets, use my weaknesses against me, just like he'd done in school.

I'd once seen a quote somewhere -it might have been on the useless notes that Arly used to write in the margins of my pages during study hall- that 'trust was like a piece of paper that has been crumpled. You can straighten it out as much as you'd like, but it would never be the same'.

Maybe she'd been trying to tell me a message then, but I –in my quiet confidence- had simply ignored what she was trying to imply. I feel like an idiot for ignoring her now, to doubt her intelligence like that was truly dangerous. Manipulation had been a _key_ factor in their (if you can call it) relationship.

I used three of my fingers to massage my left temple, looking at a strange a miracle potion (I'd forgotten what they'd called it at the supermarket) that I'd bought which would make the dye in my fur dissolve away. Was I supposed to visit him as Caleb Heartnet? Or Gabriel Winchester? Which restaurant did he say we were dining at? Was it a restaurant? I couldn't remember. How would I need to dress?... Did I have the _clothes_ to come out in anything more than I had?

I raised my head, and looked at myself in the mirror.

Scrawny weak loser. That's who I saw in the reflection.

_Why do I even __**care**__ how I look? It's just Mytho. _

But Mytho had never been 'just' Mytho. He'd always been something out of the ordinary, prompting an action out of me that was something more than simple dismissal, whether it was a scowl, a smile, an enthusiastic greeting, or a blush.

I looked down at the bottle in my hands, and then the white spot on my arm. I'd missed a spot. How stereotypical of the average scatter-brained artist.

I smiled and dumped the content into my hand.

My headache was gone.

* * *

><p>He still had to take a shot of aloe vera to steady his immune system, but he decided that he could skip this one little dosage and store it in the fridge, so that Leilani wouldn't chop of his bits in aggravation. Instead he took a half-finished bottle of water, his phone and a few ring credits before he headed down to the garage. A little while after Lottie had gone to New Town Orphanage, Tails had offered him free Extreme Gear lessons in his spare time. Caleb really wanted to learn again (well, it wouldn't be <em>learn<em> because he already knew how to do everything, it was more a matter of teaching his body not to react badly) but every single time he touched an Extreme Gear, flashes of Arly's crash raced through his vision, and when he came back to reality, he'd be on the floor, panting and scared out of his wits. So he decided not to glance over at Tails and Wave as he passed them, because they'd think it strange, wouldn't they? That a _white_ fox was leaving the garage instead of a brown one.

It felt nice, being in his own fur again. He'd grown accustomed to the redwood brown that he'd stuck to since he was a cadet, that seeing his natural shade was… frightening even**(ii)**. It wasn't as refreshing as he hoped it would be. It was probably because he felt paranoid. He expected henchmen to drop from the sky and drag him to his father. Luckily, he made it to Castle Town without attracting too much attention. The residents of Soleanna were still very surprised to see an Arctic fox in the middle of summer. He'd grown accustomed to the weather back in Downunda, which was hotter than Soleanna _by far._

He looked around the square when he reached Castle Town, knowing that this was the designated meeting spot. Despite _not _caring what the Hell Mytho had to say, he was still incredibly nervous. History was one thing, and chemistry was another.

When he felt the ghost of fingers along his back, he shivered and snapped his head around, panicking when he registered pressure on his lips. Fire erupted down his spine, across his skin and over his face as he tried to ignore his first instinct to push him away. A growl resonated between their mouths and fox canine's snagged his bottom lip and _bit_ hard.

"Yowch!"

Immediately shuffling his sneakers into a battle stance, he punched the wolf square across the jaw, but when he only took one staggered step back, he brought one leg up to knee him in the gut, feeling his claws retracting in his prickled state.

"You. _Fucking. __**Bastard.**_" Caleb snarled, blue eyes turning into narrow slits. He tried to ignore the pleasant thrumming along his skin, or the rapidity of his heartbeats as he finally registered Mytho Truscott. The GUN commander-to-be could be one immature prick.

"Nice to see you too, Darlin'," the wolf slurred, bright green eyes cheeky and mischievous while his hand covered a mouth that was no doubt grinning at his expense. "Man it is good to see you again. Red in the face, as you'd have it."

He reached up to feel his face. It was burning. Damn him to _Hell. _

He watched the wolf nurse his bleeding lip, trying to get accustomed to the image of Mytho last time he'd seen him (over three years ago) and the man he saw now. Mytho had always had this stature; regal, tall, threatening, well, not so much threatening in Caleb's eyes anymore. His green eyes were still the same, just on the boundary between acidic and forest-y. Just like Arly, his white fur was tinted aquamarine, despite the fact that they weren't even blood-related. They weren't even part of the same _species._ And despite all the weird crap that had gone on between the both of them, he still found himself _attracted _to this traitorous asshole.

"What is _wrong _with you?" he growled, as he surveyed the area to see exactly how many people had just seen the kiss-turned-brawl. "Mind-fucking again, I see. Wouldn't think the soon-to-be GUN commander would have to resort to such means in order to get girls to sleep with him."

"You did," the wolf replied quietly, and Caleb stiffened. His muscles went rigid as his eyes hardened, what was possibly the most threatening scowl that he could muster breaking his features apart. "'Cept he wasn't a girl."

"Shut up," he muttered dangerously, claws flinching. He had to rein in his emotions again. Unpleasant memories on _this_ scale always made him cry, even if it was just the stray tear here and there, but he _never_ wanted to show this kind of weakness in front of someone like _Mytho. _GUN commander-to-be aside, this man had _ruined _him.

"Alright, we'll forget about that," Mytho purred, trying to play with one of Caleb's bangs. The fox snapped his wrist, catching the commander's wrist and pressing his claws into one of the blue veins running under the skin. He had to let out a pained yelp and Caleb let go, hoping that he'd learnt his lesson, "bottom line is, I want you back."

"You… you make my life _miserable, _so I'm just on the verge of _killing_ myself. And _now _you say you want me back!" he took a step back, but Mytho just stepped forward. "May I remind you just how bad the homophobia _is_ in Downunda? Fucking beatings and name calling and derogatory messages spray-painted on my locker and cyber bullying and-" he couldn't help it any more; his throat was dry when the choked sob forced its way through. _This_ was why he didn't want to come today.

"Hey," the wolf growled, canines poking through, "it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for me either."

"_How?" _Caleb screeched, "You were the one _orchestrating_ everyone's movements! You don't know what it feels like, Mr. Everyone's-bending-down-to-kiss-my-shoes, to have an _entire_ Academy against you, simply because 'hey, I'd rather fuck a guy than a girl'."

"You _raped_ m-!"

Five minutes into the conversation and he was already breaking down.

"_I'm sorry!" _the fox's voice broke, just on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know how many times I can apologise to make it better. I'm _so_ sorry. The thought frightened me so badly, that I could resemble my father in any-"

"Hey!" Mytho placed his hands on Caleb's shoulders, trying to get him to look up from the ground, "You're nothing like him. It wasn't your fault."

"Damn _right_ it wasn't my fault!" he snarled, eyes glowing as he pulled himself away from Mytho's grasp, "It was yours! If the circumstances hadn't been as unique as they were, you would have pressed charges!"

The wolf spotted a nearby bench and guided the distraught fox to it, smoothing his hand up and down his back as Caleb hid his face beneath his bangs, "The legal definition of rape is 'A person who has sexual intercourse with another person without consent of that other person'."

"Well, they- they didn't include empaths into the equation obviously. I'm _so_ scared to drink aloe vera now, scared that something like that could happen again."

"I still don't understand-"

Caleb closed his eyes, bringing his knees up to his chest, "When empaths drink aloe vera, not only do the people around them lose control of their emotions, the empaths lose control as well." His eyes were watery, but he was refusing to let the tears fall, crossing his arms over his knees and speaking into his fur, "My-my," he flushed, "_crush_ on you, combined with the aloe vera influence flooded your mind _and _mine."

"Oh…" Mytho looked back sheepishly, "and all this time I thought you were trying to manipulate me…"

"For Solaris' sake, I am not _that_ fucked up!" Caleb snarled at him, the movement enough to make the tear ducts overflow. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, stating the rest of his story with indifference, "And because _you_ entered me, plus the fact that I was seven days from being legal, in Downunda anyway, if you had explained the situation to the police, _you_ would have been charged. Because anyone can prove that I'm mutant, but no one can provide physical evidence that I'm an empath."

"Callie…"

"_Don't_ call me that. It's still _r-r-_" Caleb shivered uncomfortably, "ra-… technically it was still without your consent, even though you couldn't tell at the time. I _made_ you want it, without conscious thought. I could tell you didn't like the fact that _technically _I'd hypnotised you into… you know, sex, when you told everyone I was a cock-sucking faggot, and set everything in my locker on fire."

"I'm _incredibly_ sorry about that," the wolf murmured.

"Well, you wouldn't have had to be sorry if you didn't _spike my __**fucking**__ drink!_ I warned you guys that my mentor was teaching me how to use pleasure receptors to dull the pain in combat, and that spiking my drink during that time was an _incredibly __**bad**_idea. But did you listen? _Nooo._"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I want you to stop apologising. You're right, it wasn't your fault. And I gave you shit for judging people so fast after that happened? I feel really bad now. If you didn't judge people as fast as you could, they could break your trust again."

"Too late."

Caleb wiped his eyes with the heel of his hands, scowling when he noticed that Mytho's hand was on his shoulder, but he didn't have the energy to move it anymore, "Was that about me, or about Arl-?"

"Don't…" he whispered, but it sounded like a plea. He twisted his fingers into his hair, "She screwed me over, even worse than you did. She was my friend through that hell-hole, she helped me up when I was too weak to keep going, and she made me… she made me fall in _love_ with her, when I didn't believe it existed. And then she _stabbed_ me in the back, like that…"

"What are you saying?"

"Why are you defending her?" Caleb asked, betrayal in his voice, "You two fought _all the time._"

"Over _you._ We fought _over _you."

Caleb blanched, flushing uncomfortably under the green-eyed gaze. He'd never thought to think about it like that. He'd suppressed his empathic powers around that time, and he just felt _blind_ to people's reactions.

"You never told me what Arly did wrong," Mytho said, his voice just on the edge of a growl.

"She ruined my life, the back-stabbing, manipulative, _bitch._"

"How could you say that about her, after what she did for you?" the wolf snarled.

"Easily. She might have been protecting me from you, but she sure as Hell didn't make it any better by-"

"She _died_ for you."

"No she didn't… I was at the crash," the white fox looked down, recalling the memories robotically. For some reason, the memories didn't hurt as much as they should have, he _knew_ this. "She lost too much blood, and they couldn't get my donations to her fast enough."

"What about you?" Mytho asked in alarm, "You don't remember what happened to _you_ in that crash?"

"I broke my leg, a bit of a concussion… nothing serious," the fox replied distantly, wondering why flashes of bright green red and blue flashed through Mytho's aura. He was feeling worried, scared, sad and angry, but he didn't know why.

"Caleb, one of your major arteries were _destroyed_ in that crash, you had to…" the wolf just shook his head, "I can't believe Leilani kept this from you… no wonder you hate Arly as much as you do."

"What are you saying?" he asked, alarmed.

"An obliten must 'ave come to suppress your memories about what _really_ happened. We have to find one, now," he declared, grabbing Caleb's arm.

"I can't!" he growled, tugging his wrist away, "I've got work, you selfish prick."

"Oh, where do you work?"

"It's too late to take interest now. There's no more time for… for _this_. Not now, not ever," the fox shook his head, voice betraying annoyance, while his eyes spoke of sadness. "I'll keep in contact, you already have my number from the witness protection business, just speak to one of the GUN secretaries, once I find out this business with oblitens you menti-"

"I can wait," Mytho whispered. _For you. _

The fox paused, emotions and heart and mind betraying his body by relying on the instinct to jump back into the wolf's arms. It was getting harder to breath. Suddenly, his heartbeat felt _alien. _But he wasn't going to… he _couldn't_…

The piece of paper between he and Mytho hadn't just been crumpled, it'd been eaten, chewed up, spat out and set fire to. There was no recovery. There never would be. Time couldn't heal this wound. There simply wasn't enough of it.

_No matter how much I want it to. _

"You know, it always killed me, knowing you loved her more than you'd ever like me."

"That's because you-"

"I meant _before_ the aloe vera incident. I could tell you loved her from the second you met her, because she was there to pick you up when you'd fallen down."

"There's no more _time_ for heartbreak. I can't do this…"

He hopped off the bench and dusted his clothes. When the wolf caught his wrist and pleaded with his eyes to make him stay, Caleb shook his head and tugged his hand free.

"I can't. I just _can't._"

"… You're still in love with her. Aren't you?"

A pause. A heartbeat.

"Yes."

* * *

><p><strong>Undying Promise<strong>

I think, because she's dead  
>And that we've kept this secret for nearly three years now,<br>That it's better to tell him the truth  
>Because he's suffering for it.<p>

How am I to say what's right?  
>And what's wrong?<br>When I'm the kind of person  
>Those rules were made for?<p>

My lips have been sewn shut,  
>But what is an unpicker for?<br>Than to unravel these lies?

L.E.

* * *

><p><em>Sick Little Games <em>by All Time Low

* * *

><p>The rhythmic tap, tap followed a frantic beat of inappropriate thinking music and black-clouded thoughts, swirling in a process of bad luck and broken resolutions. Tails was feeling grim, which was to say, very bad. Shadow –being grim- wasn't that bad, because said mechanic was, in many senses of the word, grim… and moody, and whiny and bitchy, etcetera, etcetera. Wave –being grim- wasn't that out of the ordinary, considering her personality revolved between two points, one) pissy and two) content, where it was a battle to keep her in the latter stage, obviously preferable to her wrench-throw-y, cuss-y, degrade-your-intelligence-at-all-costs…-y state. Now <em>Tails, <em>wouldn't exactly call himself a little ball of sunshine (though there are some that say he reminds them of such (_despite_ the fact that he isn't a gigantic, blinding ball in orange-yellow aeriform)) because he could –and often would- summon fiery monsters of angst and general cantankerousness almost palpable.

All in all, bringing three pessimists together just _might _have been as effective as nailing green jelly to a tree.

Why did it have to be green?

Because _he said so!_ That's why.

"I have an idea-"

"No." Oh Shadow, wait a go, thanks for considering all their options.

"But you haven't even heard-!"

But then again, he could understand where the hedgehog was coming from, "If it's anything like your last suggestion, I'll have no part in it."

"He's kinda right, Wave, I mean- he couldn't even pull of the outfit if he tried," the fox's words were a tired slur, but he hadn't thought of the malicious message underneath it, and smiled sarcastically when it did come to mind, earning a narrowed ruby-eyed gaze speaking of promises for petty pranks and the general dislike for living once he was through with the kit. "Oops, did I say that out loud?" he tended to get crabby in situations like this.

"Oh, sarcasm. You must think you're _so_ witty right now," Shadow growled, as if there wasn't enough tension between all of them already. Not the good kind of tension either, but then again wondering about sexual tension involving Shadow wasn't a good sign. _NOT _like he purely thought about _sex_ around Wave. Oh, no. His mind wasn't _that_ tainted…

_What was I thinking about again?_

Another note! Sticking pessimists together, especially sarcastic, highly intelligent ones, often broke out into droll insults, before more lewd and embarrassing discrepancies. Tails, being of smart, logical and slightly psychotic mind, knew where _that_ tone of voice, and _that _expression, and _those_ insults eventually led to. And _no, _it wasn't the happy land of gum-drop-rainbows, pastel-painted pixie stix and a limitless buffet of oil-drenched junk.

"Ah, but wit doesn't have any relation to elucidation, doesn't it? If we identify the problem, then we can identify the solution, right?"

"It's that kind of asinine alacrity which explains why we haven't answered this problem already," Wave spat, crossing her legs over one another and pinching the bridge of her beak.

"I'm _not_ whoring myself out to pay for the bills!" the hedgehog slammed his fist down, hmm, trying a very authority-like move right there. It wasn't working though, because Tails and Wave were set on undermining him, just for their own pleasure, because, they were sadistic like that.

"C'mon Shadow! Take one for the team!" the fox kit cheered happily, before taking on a more serious expression, "Or two, or three, or five…"

"But Rouge-" the words were stuck in his throat before he had the chance to finish them. Now, one had the very rare chance to see the famous Shadow the hedgehog embarrassed in any sense, whether it be because Sonic had managed to die his fur pink (again), or Tails had managed to position that oil stain _just right_ to see him slip over and fall on his backside, it was never _ever_ due to his sex life or relationship issues. Did Shadow even _have_ relationship issues? Tails had never seen Shadow in a relationship before. This was Shadow's first, even if they were only in a 'friend with benefits', you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours kind of deal.

Wave's eyes widened, blinking and smiling in such a way that Tails could read exactly what she was thinking. When she said: "What _about_ Rouge?" her female translation came out saying something like: _'Gossip! Give me gossip!'_

"Nothing," Shadow dismissed, looking away as if he was embarrassed, which was hard to tell because the hedgehog had (usually) learned to become impassive to such a degrading and 'Mobian-like' emotion (the way in which he described it as such led Tails to believe Shadow was some kind of alien) managing to build up a mask almost impenetrable to emotion. Not in this case it seemed.

Tails didn't really understand the entertainment value of trying to wriggle out Shadow's secrets, probably because he had been trying for almost five years now and he hadn't come out the tiniest bit enlightened, so he decided to come back to the topic at hand. "Listen, you can worry about Shadow's weird relationships later, we're having a crisis here."

"You know, I can always get Jet and Storm to help me with another heist," Wave shrugged nonchalantly, as if that hadn't been a totally appalling suggestion.

"Wave! Stealing is wrong!"

He'd seriously thought that they'd _stopped _as soon as they started staying in the Black Arms.

"Says the kid who makes a living dealing with illegal machinery," she snapped back.

"Well, they didn't even give us an official reason as to why Extreme Gear was banned!" Tails was recalling the moment it had been announced over the news, and the riots that followed, which weren't particularly a good idea, considering they had just gotten out of the Black Advent and the city had been in shambles. Since Eggman was such a coward and sent the minimum amount of troops out to help the people, he could stop the riots with full force because he had saved battalions for _after_ the Black Arms had left, "You can ask anyone in the city, and they'll agree with me about the fact that Extreme Gear shouldn't be banned because of _one _incident involving some reckless bird and one of Eggman's favourite laboratories."

It was as if Shadow had been struck at the base of the spine or something, because he immediately straightened up and looked at Wave curiously, as if she was a puzzle that he just couldn't figure out. He then turned back and started walking away.

"Hey!" Tails growled at him, "Where do you think you're going?"

"I need to speak with someone," he replied, in monotone, as if he had been _possessed_ or something. It was weird. Tails shook his head and turned back to Wave, who was making immature messages on her calculator.

"And then there were two," she declared.

"No one's taking me seriously! Doesn't anyone think that the Black Arms _losing profit_ is a big deal?" he complained, but Wave seemed bent on not listening to him, because she believed her opinion was the correct one after all. "All of this anti-mutant nonsense is interfering with the profit that we're making, and now we hardly get any customers even if we extend our hours and provide extensive procedures for electronics that _aren't_ Extreme Gear."

"C'mon Tails, if we steal from someone like Jules or Mammoth Mogul, I'd hardly call it stealing," she replied.

_Well… if you think about it that way…_

"I mean, the money that they have is stolen from mutants anyway."

"And you decide that going all Rob O'the Hedge about it is going to make it all better?" he asked, realising the error of his ways, "If you are going to steal from Jules or Mogul, the ring should go to mutants that need it more than we do."

Her eyes narrowed, and Tails could immediately tell that he had crossed some kind of invisible line, "Oh, stop being all high and mighty about it, you complain about having no money, but when I offer a reasonably okay suggestion, you reprimand me for even suggesting it!"

"That's because –bent as our morals are- stealing is still wrong, whether we're using it for ourselves or not."

She hissed throwing her hands in the air, "Screw this! Don't ask for my help with a practical problem knowing I have flimsy morals," and with that, she grabbed her Gear and zoomed off to Solaris knew where.

* * *

><p><strong>To: <strong>unknown number  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Received Sunday 5:42 pm

_intel gathering intervals are almost complete. the first stage of the operation has begun._

**To: **Heartnet  
><strong>From: <strong>Evans

Received Sunday 5:44 pm

_Why didn't you tell me you were meeting with Commander Truscott?_

**To: **Evans  
><strong>From: <strong>Heartnet

Received Sunday 5:45 pm

_i don't need to give you the specific details of all my booty calls._

**To: **unknown number  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Received Sunday 5:47 pm

_Excellent work. Results are expected during the next race. Circumstances surrounding your part of the deal will need to be reviewed this coming Tuesday. It is in your best interest to check on Rabbot to analyse progress._

**To: **Heartnet  
><strong>From: <strong>Evans

Received Sunday 5:50 pm

_Har har. Are you okay?_

**To: **Evans  
><strong>From: <strong>Heartnet

Received Sunday 5:52pm

_yeah. i got my fur back to 'normal' and everything._

**To: **Heartnet  
><strong>From: <strong>Evans

Received Sunday 5:56

_I meant about Mytho._

**To: **unknown number  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Received Sunday 6:06 pm

_confirmed._

**To: **Evans  
><strong>From: <strong>Heartnet

Received Sunday 6:03 pm

_i don't know..._

* * *

><p><strong>To: <strong>Mytho Truscott  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Voice recording received Monday 3:00am

Her voice is siren-like and static-y, glass breaks and the melancholic a cappella rises in volume, the haunting lyrics sending ice shooting through his bones and freezing the marrow within.

"_Brother, can you hear me?  
>My lights faded to dark,<br>That doesn't mean, I cannot sing,  
>My heart's still beating.<br>It still stings!"_

Slowly, the voice message rose until it was indistinguishable, rose in pitch so that the sound that resonated in his apartment echoed like soundwaves bent on throwing around his skull.

"_Wait so that I will come to you,  
>Your eyes are green, and mine still blue.<br>You're not my quarrel, as it seems.  
>But I will haunt you in your dreams.<em>

"_Step aside, and you'll be fine.  
>Let me claim this heart of mine.<br>Interfere, and wait 'till death,  
>For you will breath your final breaths.<em>

"_Will you sink? Or will you float.  
>Let me have him, or I'll slit your throat."<em>

When he opened his eyes, all the glass in his apartment had shattered, and there were cuts all along his body. Mytho opened wide green eyes, curious that he didn't hear a thing, even when his neighbours threw down his door and screamed at him. He brought his hand up to his ears.

They were bleeding.

* * *

><p><strong>To: <strong>Leilani Evans  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Voice recording received Monday 3:00am

She immediately stiffened when she heard the voice, light and airy, despite the personality and demeanour of the person that was singing. But that didn't matter, did it? This situation in itself was _impossible. _

"_Sister, can you hear me?  
>My light's faded to dark,<br>That doesn't mean, I cannot sing,  
>My heart's still beating.<br>It still stings!"_

"No. No!"

_This __**can't**__ be happening! _

She tried to stop the phone, tried to stop the recording, tried to smash it against the wall. But it was all for naught. Even when the circuitry wasn't working anymore, the voice still echoed through her room.

"_You've grown closer, since I left,  
>Sanity missing, petty theft.<br>You're not my quarrel, you will see,  
>But protect him, and you will be.<em>

"_Step aside, and you'll be fine.  
>Let me claim this heart of mine.<em>

"_The darkness consumes you.  
>Emotions, faith and will.<br>Leave him be, and pay your dues.  
>You won't be the final kill."<em>

She curled up in the corner, fighting the pain and tears and anguish. She tried her best not to cry.

Her best wasn't good enough.

* * *

><p><strong>To: <strong>Rouge  
><strong>From: <strong>unknown number

Voice recording received Monday 3:00am

"Just ignore it," Shadow murmured against her neck, pulling her closer to him.

"But it could be someone important," she replied.

"Why call at this hour anyway?"

She put it on loudspeaker and pressed play…

"_Mentor, can you hear me?"_

"_**Lover, can you hear me?"**_

"_My light's faded to dark,"_

"_**I've come to take your heart!"**_

"_That doesn't mean I cannot sing,"_

"_**I'll sing you to sleep,"**_

"_My heart's still beating."_

"_**With a lullaby."**_

"_It still stings!"_

"_**While you say your last goodbye…"**_

There was a deafening scream from upstairs, and Rouge realised why Caleb was having a mental breakdown. She brought the phone to herself and snapped it in half, while the commotion upstairs got louder and louder. The words of the speaker however, continued to reverberate, echoing throughout the building in an eerie, ghost-like clarity in the most beautiful, the most horrifying voice she had ever heard.

"_He's in your mind, but don't hold his hand.  
>You won't be there, for final stands."<em>

"_**Your betrayal is at this root,  
>Did it hurt to aim and shoot?"<strong>_

"_Go AWAY!"_ Caleb's voice was on the edge of hysterical. She pulled on a robe and ran out of Shadow's room, climbing the stairs to the attic.

"_You're not my quarrel, make my day,  
>Make sure to step out of the way."<em>

"_**It's time to shed light on this grim disarray,  
>Because I've come back to make you pay."<strong>_

"_Step aside, and you'll be fine.  
>Let me claim this heart of mine."<em>

"_**Wait until your lies align,  
>Let me claim this heart of mine."<strong>_

When she reached him, Caleb was on the floor hunched over the broken phone, cradling his head in his hands and sobbing. Arly's voice, the pain that it carried, the volume, the pitch, it had woken everyone up. But they didn't recognise this woman, she only carried value to Caleb, Shadow and herself.

"_He's not nearly as innocent,  
>As you think he seems.<br>Just wait 'till the fire,  
>And the deafening screams."<em>

"_**You'd sooner sign away your loyalty,  
>Than deal with the past.<br>Take a bow, Prince,  
>It will be your last."<strong>_

All around them. Glass lie around them and she had to hold him tight to stop him from grabbing a shard and ending it right there. She embraced him and he gripped so hard she was afraid his claws would dig into her skin. He was shaking in her grasp, and warm moisture found itself smeared across her neck.

So much broken glass.

Broken.

Broken.

_Broken. _

* * *

><p><em>Darkshines <em>by Muse

* * *

><p>Tails watched as his hand traced idly across the blank paper, making out simple geometric shapes. But even the lines before him came out as squiggles and dotted zig-zags. The times he had seen Caleb draw and write, his movements were always efficient and smooth, fluid, but his hands were shaking, <em>he<em> was shaking. He couldn't go ten minutes without flinching and looking around to affirm that he was still safe, occasionally blocking his ears from loud noises.

The kit couldn't blame him, everyone had needed to visit Doctor Quack last night to get some ear medicine after the phone episode and some anxiety meds for Rouge and Caleb. He could still hear the voice of the woman from the phone, up until it had become a banshee's wail. It was _beautiful._ And yet the voice of someone like this caused Caleb and Rouge such pain, such heartbreak. It made his heart ache for the two, who seemed shaken to the core. The fox hadn't even been able to drink his coffee without spilling it onto the table. His eyes were sunken in and dull, but they darted from corner to corner with increasing rapidity, ready and willing to get into battle stance when the need called for it.

Slowly and shakily, he pulled out his wallet, placing twenty-thousand ring credits onto the table. Tails looked at the rings, and then at the fox, who had managed to keep his gaze focused on him now, "If you need any more to replace the glass the soundwave's broke, just ask."

"_No, _I could never," Tails shook his head, knowing that he'd definitely need a _lot_ of money to replace most of the glass in the Black Arms (thank Solaris it hadn't reached the garage), he still couldn't take Caleb's money. That was _half_ of the reason Caleb was at the Black Arms in the first place**(iii)**.

"Take it," he insisted, pushing it towards Tails, "I don't want it any more." He placed his head in his hands again, tugging on the strands before he tried to lift the coffee to his lips. His fingers twitched and in seconds, the brown liquid had spilt over the image. The older fox stared at for the longest time, looking like he was going to break down crying again, but then he composed himself, got up and went to grab a rag so that he could clean it up.

He sat down again and started cleaning it half-heartedly while Tails got up to make another cup of coffee, wondering how he was going to reject his offer when he was in such a state. The times when Caleb actually showed vulnerability were rare, but obviously when he did, he didn't tend to _think_ right. Well, to say Caleb's thought processes were always dead-set logical would be a lie as well, but… giving away _twenty-thousand _ring credits? This was ridiculous!

There was an abrupt slam from downstairs and Caleb flinched again before continuing to wipe away the mess.

Sonic screeched from downstairs, "I _can't_ believe you wouldn't tell us something like that!"

"It _isn't _your problem, Sonic!" Knuckles replied. Oh, no. The both of them sounded _really_ angry. Like, it wasn't the teasing that he was used to between the both of them, they sounded like they were _really_ going to tell each other off. That or start with the fist-fighting, which wasn't recommended because those two could _really _tear the place apart… actually, from experience, he knew that _any_ combination of fights including Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, Silver or Storm could end up with serious damage towards the house.

"Of course it's our problem! We could have helped you!"

"_How?" _the echidna growled, "Everyone's so concerned about their _own _problems! You're _obsessed_ with Freedom Fighters again, creating suicide missions to take down Eggman's lieutenants. Tails, is getting into fights _repeatedly! _I mean, in high school he's just the cute little nerd that everyone turns to for logical sense. Shadow, is going through _spasmodic_ memory loops, just stopping halfway through what he's doing and running off to investigate his past. Things between Silver and Blaze are _awkward_ as Hell! The Babylon Rouges are drawing _reporters_ and _Egg Sentries_ to our door, and-and the _shit _from last night concerning Heartnet and his _undead_ girlfriend! I can't take this anymore." Tails flinched when he heard Caleb suck in a breath and get up to wring the coffee into the sink. The younger fox tilted his head and saw what he had been drawing. It was a picture of a beautiful girl.

_Is this Arly?_

Tails hadn't seen a picture of Arly before. He hadn't bothered beyond looking at a picture of Mytho and his family when he was a child. But… Solaris… she was _enchanting. _And… apparently… that was her…

"_What?" _Tails snapped out of his thoughts, realising that Caleb was looking at him. The kit looked over the balcony just in time to see Knuckles flipping Sonic the bird and slamming the door to the garage. Caleb flinched, but otherwise kept his gaze on Tails.

"'What', what?" the mechanic murmured.

"You're feeling… confused, anxious and distracted. But mostly curious," he murmured, taking the soggy picture and throwing it into the bin, taking the charcoal and snapping it in half.

"Was… tell me when I cross some kind of line, yeah?... Was Arly a mutant?"

Caleb looked at the charcoal for a little bit before he nodded, "Yeah…" he put it down. "We couldn't find her classification… she was a mix between a siren and a banshee. I could _never_ read her, because she was so highly musically oriented," he sounded frustrated now, "and if she had a tune in her head then it screwed up her visual aura, feeling an emotion for _one second _and then switching to its counterpart. She was too fast to understand, it's like trying to read a book while you're running away from Egg Sentries!"

"I wouldn't know, too preoccupied, you know?" Tails joked cautiously.

"Yeah," Caleb smiled, tiredly.

Sonic and Silver arrived at the kitchen at the same time, looking pissed and tired. Sonic tossed his phone onto the desk and it skimmed across the table top towards Caleb. The fox grabbed it, and placed it into the middle, "I've called Cyrus. You're not coming into work today."

"What?" the distraught fox asked, "Why?"

"Because you're mentally unstable! You can't even work your cognitive functions properly. You need to see a psychiatrist."

"Can't see Welsh-Doc. It's Sunday."

"So?"

"Can only see him on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays."

"But you're his apprentice," Sonic said in disbelief.

"Your point?" Caleb asked, getting up from the desk, "Listen. I don't _want _to take a day off."

"You _need_ one," Silver protested.

"I _need_ to take my mind off this- this… _whatever_ it is," he replied, dusting off his clothes. "'Sides, Cyrus will let me work, he's a pushover**(iv)**."

"No, he won't," Silver shook his head gently, "not when you can't even get up properly."

The fox stood up to demonstrate his cognitive abilities, but his legs gave out on him and he slapped his hands on the table to keep balance. "See?"

"_Fuck_ off," Caleb slurred, plopping himself back on the chair again.

"You're not right to work today," Tails murmured.

"_Fine," _the fox growled angrily, getting one of the pieces of charcoal and snapping it in half, "I won't work if _you_ accept the cash," he grabbed his wallet and tossed five-thousand more onto the table, "_and_ that too, because of the Black Arms financial situation."

"_Caleb!" _Tails shook his head, pushing the rings back, "You _live_ in a cesspool city. You eat crap and can't afford college. _Why_ are you just throwing this money away?"

The fox shook his head, he looked sick. "I've got enough for Lottie's meds, more than enough."

"And everything else?"

Caleb rolled his eyes and got up, shakily, "If there's _one_ thing I learned being raised as a spoilt rich kid, it was that giving away money made me feel better. It sounds shallow and conceited, but it _just_ does. Take it for me, will you?"

"Fine," Tails shrugged, taking the credits and scooping them into his pocket.

"So you can apologise to Wave now, right?" the fox inclined his head, smirking, "All that sexual tension between you two makes me uncomfortable."

"Eww," Silver stuck his tongue out, laughing, "that's gross."

"Hey, you try being stuck in an emotional three-way," the now-brown fox grinned, "it's absolute torture when Shadow and Rouge start getting it on."

"Yuck!" Sonic laughed.

Caleb looked at the time, "Aren't you two meant to be off now?"

There was a dual curse between the two hedgehogs and then they disappeared. Tails was about to head down when he turned back to the fox, who was following him to settle himself on the couch, "You sure you're going to be alright? No running away while I'm down there?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Caleb winked lazily and turned on the PS3.

Suffice to say, Caleb was out of the window less than five minutes later, sneakily trying to break into Cesario's house. But when Tails realised that all of her windows were shattered as well, he decided to leave him be, instead wondering _just_ how he was going to apologise for something he didn't regret saying.

* * *

><p><strong>Wave's cures to having a particularly shitty day:<strong>

a) Mechanics of any kind (nullified due to being in the presence of the two-tailed twat.)  
>b) Chocolate (this only works for a little bit, because spending money on more chocolate made her feel guilty.)<br>c) Reading.  
>d) Riding Extreme Gear (nullified when started being chased by Egg Sentries.)<br>e) Ice cream, but she'd heard that stealing Shadow's was a death sentence,  
>f) and alcohol, a method that never really failed her.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Grade 8<em> by Ed Sheeran

* * *

><p>And it was because of this special miracle drink, that the swallow came back to Black Arms shit-faced drunk and bubbling nonsense about exploding Easter eggs and killing the rabbit with poison tipped machetes. Despite these demented ramblings, Tails soon realised that Wave was actually the stereotypical affectionatecuddly drunk, this being realised as he locked up shop and dragged her sorry ass up the stairs while trying to keep her hands out of his developing chest hair.

"It's so _fluffy…_" he was surprised he could even focus on hauling her upstairs while her hands roamed through his fur through a misty haze of dulled blue eyes. This had happened on similar occasions with Sonic, but finding handholds on a guy's body was _way _less distressing than trying to find one on a girl's. He set her on the couch and was about to go and grab some water when she pulled him back by the tails and caught him around the middle, rubbing her face into his neck. "I'm sorry for what I said this morning. I forgot you're a pussy when it starts concerning morals."

He cringed away from her, not so much because of the insult, but her breath was intense. Not really bad, she smelled surprisingly enough like peppermint, mint being a smell he was incredibly fond of. "That's alright, just let go of me."

"But you're so fluffy."

"We established that and-_hey!_" she flipped them over so that Tails was pressed into the corner of the couch and she was draped over him in an _incredibly_ suggesting position. What were the chances of his friends coming to his aid if he yelled for help? Then he thought about the chances of them taking photos instead and taking advantage of Wave's drunkenness. Where was everyone?

She brought her head to his and brushed her cheek against his exposed neck, "Tails, you know what you should try?"

"Getting a restraining order?" he replied immediately, feeling his face heat up at the close proximity. Would pushing a girl away really fast count as violence?

"You'd make a good boyfriend," she mumbled, completely out of nowhere, and Tails started blushing. She was moving too fast for someone so drunk. "You're nice, and you're kind, and you're smart…" she blinked her hazy eyes, and Tails' mind was too slow to register the fact that she was slowly leaning in, closer and closer, "You're nothing like _him…_" In a split second, he had his hands at her collar bone, stopping her before her mouth met his. For a second, he contemplated letting her go and do whatever she wanted, feeling sleepy and warm and content. Then his mind caught up with him and he was suddenly aware of the situation.

_She's eighteen! I'm fourteen. Besides, she's drunk out of her mind. Don't take advantage of her. _

"Listen to me, Wave," he said, as if she was speaking to a child, "you are very, very drunk. You _don't_ want this. You don't like me. I'm _jailbait_ if you hadn't forgotten."

When she saw that Tails was slowly slipping out of her grasp she called out, "Tails!" he turned around and before he could register what was happening, she had one hand resting on his neck and her mouth was crushed clumsily against his. Fire and white electricity erupted throughout his body before he mustered up all the willpower he possessed and pushed her back onto the sofa.

"Stop it, Wave. You're acting on instinct, because you're upset about being alone. I know. I've felt that heartache."

"I'm sorry," she pleaded. "Ju-just, don't go. I… I won't do it again, I promise."

Upon hearing the sincerity in her voice, he sat back on the couch carefully again, allowing Wave to flop on her side, slipping a hand underneath his waist and draping her other arm over his ribs, snuggling her head into his chest. Obviously, drunk Wave didn't understand the meaning of personal space. "_Wave, _you're giving me a 'no' feeling."

"Peppermint schnapps!" she nuzzled further into her cuddle-buddy (read: hostage) in a way that made his body spasm uncomfortably. He felt tingly and weird, plus, there were limited ways to get out of this situation, and the chances of this escalating into something mortifying were getting higher and higher. A chill wracked through him when her breath fanned over his nose. He wrinkled it a little, smelling more alcohol than peppermint. Was there such a thing as second-hand drinking? "Amy said you like mint things."

"Ugh, Amy's spilling stuff about me now."

"'S a good thing, kitty," she murmured, her voice musical despite the slur, "Want to know _more_ about you. 'Verything that makes you, you."

_How do I get out of this-ah!_

"Tails?"

"Wave, I need to go to the bathroom."

"But you just did."

"How do you know?"

"'Ere removin' toilet paper from your shoe when I came in."

_Dammit!_

"You're awfully observant for someone that's so drunk," he mumbled grumpily.

"Enlil, I has a question," she replied, bringing up a hand to tug at one of his ears. She delighted in the way it twitched back and forth when reacting to her touches. He jerked when she found a particularly sensitive part of his ear and scratched it lightly. "Caleb let something slip once… Tails, do you like me?" A blush erupted over his cheeks when a particularly embarrassing noise rumbled from within his chest. Wave squinted her eyes, reacting to the noise immediately, "Are you _purring?_**(v)**"

"_No!" _he replied defiantly, foiled by his own body when she scratched his ears again only to received another quiet rumble.

"Oh my god, you _purr! _I didn't even know fox kits could purr," she seemed delighted with this new information. Tails however, was not.

He shuddered against her, trying to push her away with her free hand, "Get away."

After a few minutes of insistent shoving, in which Tails had tried to escape her grasp twice, she decided to leave his ears alone after they had pressed flat against his skull, trying to remember what she had been speaking about before.

"You still haven't answered my question."

Oh, crap… "Um, what question?"

Her eyes squinted, or he thought they did, it was a little hard to see with her face in his chest. All he could really see were the lowering of eyelashes, "'M sure I asked you a question."

"You didn't."

"Oh… okay then, 'Night Kitty."

"Wait! Wave you can't sleep he-" a small sound escaped her that made him stop. It was an odd noise, one that he had never heard before, but intrigued him nonetheless. It was a soft _coo_ he'd heard by some of the Flickies flying around in the early morning, except softer and the vibrations in her throat thrummed against his clavicle, making the odd tingly sensation return. Of course, he should have suspected that she could make a noise like this, she was a bird after all, but… he didn't really understand why her voice was so damn transfixing. He supposed it affected him the way Blaze's purring affected Silver, or something of the like, the thought making him blush embarrassingly.

Feeling sleepy and content, he placed his head on hers and closed his eyes, wondering what it would take to forget the feelings of her lips on his.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes<strong>

**(i) **Rossetti is my favourite artist.

**(ii) **See Chapter 41: Dim The Lights, under the section _Across The Universe_ by Rufus Wainwright.

**(iii) **See Chapter 2: Deception in Progress, under the section _Teknopathic_ of the Jet Set Radio Future Soundtrack.

**(iv) **Cyrus the lion, of Sonic Underground. He was basically the Tails replacement of the series.

**(v)** Foxes do purr. I work part time at an animal shelter and we find injured foxes all the time. Poor things.

**Taichi L. Yagami **won the **CENSORED** competition (for mentioning SKITTLES!) and they've come up with the drabble options for the next chapter.

A) Cream plans to take action against Tails and Wave's budding friendship.

B) Caleb, Sonic, and Shadow take Tails to a bar.

C) Wave reflects on her past relationships.

**ღ**


	47. Riot!

**domi|note**

ANNOUNCEMENT! We have officially exceeded the review count for **It's a Technician Thing!** Yay! That's so much better than what I was expecting. Thanks a lot for the support guys! (yes, even you lurkers.)

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **LordCooler**, **Exploder**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Stonefaced610**, **Taichi L. Yagami** and **The Loner in the Shadows** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>It's easy to love someone but hard to let someone love you back. That's the challenge of love. Fighting without knowing how to win. ~Anon<br>_...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**_.  
>Chapter Forty Seven<br>_.  
>"On the TV, in your face, on radio-oh. It's a riot, it's a riot, they say no-oh. In the cities, on the streets, around the glo-obe. We are. We are. We are."<br>_...  
>What Starry Eyes Know (Two Door Cinema vs Ellie Goulding) <em>by Neon Hitch

* * *

><p>Out of <em>all <em>the horrendous ways Tails had been woken up in the past four years, (liquorice shoelaces, Bieber t-shirt, hand-in-bowl trick, unsuspecting makeover**(i)**) _this _had to be one of the worst. The light flashed, irritating, _blinding_ despite his eyes being closed. There was that annoying click that registered the gnawing feeling in the back of his mind. He'd memorised what it felt like; the instinctive body reaction was to curl up into a ball or raise the hands in defense. He was so startled by the loud flash that he tumbled off the edge of the couch, which he had been precariously balancing on in sleep. His forearm hit the ground with a sound thump, but he totally ignored the pain in favour of willing away his bright flush.

Was there _no one_ in Black Arms that respected privacy?

"I _knew _it! I knew it," Jet crowed happily, turning to Sonic who was holding the camera, "Pay up, Blue."

"Goddamn," the hedgehog growled, burrowing his hand in the pocket of his track pants to locate his missing change. "Couldn't keep it a secret any longer, could you Tails?"

"Wha-what secret?" unfortunately, he hadn't yet roused the cognitive part of his brain so that he might be able to stand properly. His mind was a step behind his mouth as well, staggering more like it. Limping.

"That you and Wave finally hooked up," the hedgehog replied, as if it was obvious, which it _was. _Well, not to Tails anyway. Somewhere in the land of people-that-have-just-woken-up, Tails was _still_ attempting to understand why he'd just had a hot, steamy make-out with the floor, and whether this was some kind of dirty movie, considering Sonic was holding a camera and Jet was playing with cash. Kissing plus camera plus money. There _had_ to be some kind of porn involved, right? Or maybe his mind had just decided to give up on him and the whole 'innocent' act. His chastity barrier had fought long and hard, tooth and nail, using nothing but a rusty old sword of sparkling white purity, aided with the shield of PG-13, but unfortunately, it could not fight the force, the cannons, the dirty magazines thrown onto the war zone which was Tails' mind, because they were constantly aided by whores like Shadow, and being the youngest of a building full of people that _knew_ almost everything (about you-know-what) _You_ know what it is! _Don't lie!_)) about _anything, _didn't help in the _slightest._

"We… we didn't," the fox kit replied, getting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, footing still a little wobbly. His eyes turned to Wave who looked like she was drooling into the couch. Oh, that was just fantastic.

"That's not what the camera says!" Sonic teased, waving it in front of his face, "What would the paparazzi pay for these pictures?"

"C'mon Sonic, delete them," Tails moaned, still feeling sluggish. When Sonic stuck out his tongue Tails snatched the device, and Sonic, unused to Tails' improved speed (the result of Shadow's extensive training program) released his grip on the device, trying to snatch it back from him, but Tails (used to Sonic's predictable play-fighting) turned around and prevented it.

Then, out of absolutely nowhere, there was a flash, but it wasn't from the camera. Everything in Tails' vision adopted negative colour scape, and it turned dark before the light returned to him and, when returned from this _frightening _vision, the electricity running through the device was _visible,_ so much so that he could see it running though the wires inside the camera. Little streams of white and purple, orange and yellow flew in intricacies in the device, which was _also_ see through. Tails stared at it for the longest time, wondering what phenomenon was this. He blinked, and the image slowly started to fade away, like the stars in vision after recovering from shock.

His hatred for the small little device, brought forth the sudden, telekinetic desire, to see its memory card snapped, and its drive set on fire, which is exactly what happened, before his see through vision faded, along with the bright pulsing light in his eyes.

"Woah! Tails! Spoil-sport!" Jet shouted before he snatched the camera back. Tails shook his head to clear his mind of what had happened, but it didn't work, he was seeing the electricity flowing throughout the entire building, in the wires, behind the television, in the walls, and in each of these technologies, panels seemed like _glass_. He blinked again, and then a third time, as the visions once again started to fade.

The camera was smoking, and it refused to turn on.

"What did you do?" Sonic asked curiously as he took the camera from Jet and examined it. "Jet, he didn't do _anything_ to it, there's no damage to the panelling, and if he wanted to take out the batteries, he would have needed to use claws or a screwdriver."

"Well then _why _did it blow up?"

_The SD card snapped and the battery unit burned out. _

"Let's go ask Shadow!" Sonic grinned, "He fixes all of our toys when he's in a good mood."

Despite being absolutely shell-shocked by what had just happened, he followed them as well, blinking again to see if he could still see the electricity running through the camera. This time, he could not, nor could he see the panels behind any of the machinery. He was incredibly relieved, but at the same time… he was kinda disappointed. Now his mind was moving at a mile a minute, trying to discern the images that he had just scene.

_What __**was**__ that? _

When Jet and Sonic made it down to the ground floor Shadow was playing cards with Caleb, who was _still_ trying to improve his cognitive abilities. He'd been banned from work for another day, and after trying to escape last time, Tails had kept a better eye on him. He was still a slippery little bugger though.

"Shads, can you tell us what's wrong with this camera?" Sonic demanded rather than asked, placing the item on a messy stack of cards. The brown fox placed his hand down and revealed that he was winning anyway, pushing them into the base of the stack while the black hedgehog picked it up.

"Why can't you fix it?" he asked Tails, raising an eyebrow.

"He's the one that broke it," Jet explained.

"No, I didn't," Tails assured.

"I don't see how he could be," Shadow replied, opening the panel with a screwdriver. "The problem's internal. Tails couldn't have broken any of these without opening the panels or smashing the camera. The wiring leading to the battery is frayed and the memory card has snapped. This camera is broken; you're going to need to get a new one."

"But, how could that have happened? That camera is less than five months old," Jet murmured.

Sonic gave Tails an odd look and narrowed his eyes, "Yeah, it's odd, isn't it?"

When Sonic and Jet actually went away to start work, Caleb looked at him weirdly. He was in a distressed state of mind, partially thinking of what had happened last night between him and Wave, but the other half was more focused on what had happened with the camera. He couldn't help but feel that what had happened did because of this _rising _affinity for technology. Over the course of the summer, from the moment it had _started_ really, his skills with tech, while being extraordinary beyond his years already, had become _better._ But he didn't know _why_ as he hadn't been doing any extra studying or more research into gear components beyond what his costs and bargaining skills. They just seemed… easier to understand in a way.

It was like the objects had feelings.

"You're freaking me out, Prower. What's up with your eyes?"

"What's wrong with my eyes?" he asked, looking around for the nearest reflective surface. The older fox handed him some random panelling and what he saw royally freaked him out. Tails' eyes were _glowing, _as if they were being lit from the inside out. Shadow, who was working on his gear for tomorrow, tilted his head to the side as well, meaning Caleb wasn't just dicking around with him. He blinked again, and slowly, the light started to fade. Since when had blinking been the answer to everything? It was as if he was stuck in some kind of dream.

Caleb leaned back from his position on top of Shadow's workbench and placed his chin in one of his hands, tapping his temple in thought before scratching his nose.

_Contemplative gestures, _Tails thought.

"Tails, apart from having two tails and being able to fly, do you have any other powers?" he murmured.

Tails considered that an odd question. Of course not, every mutant only had _one_ power, branches of the same power excluded.

"Would intelligence count?" Shadow asked.

Caleb made a face and shook his head, "I don't think so. Genius capabilities come from both humans and non humans. Tails' physical genetic mutation probably came from the Black Arms influence somewhere down the line, but you're showing signs of what happened right before I found out that Arly was a siren."

"What signs?"

"Of dormant mutant powers," he explained.

"He's right," Shadow replied, "I was like that as well. You might also be showing signs of powers that have been steadily evolving over time."

"…Listen… we're not talking about Digimon here. I may be showing signs, but there's no conclusive evidence."

"Let's have a look then," Caleb grinned, getting of the bench, "you wouldn't happen to have a microscope around, would you?"

"What would you know about this?" Tails asked curiously, though he regretted that it came out as more of an insult on Caleb's intelligence. But despite the fact that the empath had mentioned being good at biology before, Tails had never seriously considered it. "What was your STAR**(ii)** mark for bio?"

"Eighty-nine point fourteen."

"Wow," he murmured. That was high. "Well it just so happens that I _do_ have a microscope lying around**(iii)**, let me just go get it."

After he'd found some spare microscope slides, he bit the tip of one of his fingers and smeared his blood on it while Caleb set up the microscope. Even Shadow stopped what he was doing to check on what was happening. He tried to examine the sample, but his hair was getting in the way. After the third time he pushed it away he growled and pulled out his regular ponytail, positioning it higher. The style was definitely too feminine, making Shadow and Tails snicker behind his back.

"Sod off, and let me concentrate."

After a few seconds of inspection, Caleb snatched another slide and pricked himself, placing his own blood under the microscope. After a minute of inspection, he waved a slide in front of Shadow, "Care to donate?"

In the name of science, Shadow complied and Caleb finally seemed happy with the results. He pushed Tails towards the microscope while the fox readjusted his hair. "The sample at the moment is mine. The way that you can tell it's different from normal Mobian blood is because my cells are reinforced with three extra layers, and the nucleus pulsates and functions hours after it's been separated from the body, meaning it's got more life force than normal. Plus, under ultraviolet light, the cells turn black or red, depending on the gender of the owner."

"Why do your cells look like they have little triangles in them? And what are those tail th-?" Tails murmured, startled when Caleb just pushed out the sample and threw it into the bin.

"No reason," his voice was abrupt, quick. He changed the slide, "This one is yours. Let me changed the magnification."

Tails gasped, "It looks like the inside of a gothic gobstopper!"

Caleb and Shadow snickered, "Well, that's the weirdest way to phrase it I've ever heard, but yes. Your nucleus is displaying its layers while trying to transform, meaning it's evolving, that's why it looks like a red and black whirlpool."

Tails pulled back and left Caleb to clean it up, "So I have a power… but what could it be?"

"Why do you think he asked?" Shadow replied, pointing his thumb at the empath, "We think it might have something to do with what you did to the camera."

"Hells Bells!"

"What?" both kit and hedgehog exclaimed at the same time.

"Shadow, what the _Hell_ is wrong with your blood?" the fox demanded, pointing the microscope, which he'd jumped a good meter away from.

The hedgehog seemed annoyed at this response, but decided to have a look at it anyway. He didn't seem as startled as the fox though, standing away from it like it was nothing, "My blood has always looked like that."

"But-!" Caleb took a few minutes to compose himself, "Your cells aren't _like_ any of ours… they're round alright, but they're in order, composed… like _plant_ cells."

"A plant?" Tails asked in confusion.

"My cells have always looked like that."

"But it isn't normal! You have _seven_ layers in a cell, you look like you have a bloody vacuole membrane instead of bubbles, plus you have something that _looks_ like chloroplast floating around."

"It can't be chloroplasts. That's for plants," Tails murmured.

"I know! And your bloody adenosine triphosphate is _huge!_"

"What's that?" Shadow asked, starting to look worried for himself. He decided to have another look through the tube, examining his cells moving in formation.

"It's the section of the cell that gathers and stores energy. In all mutants, this is pretty large, but _yours_ takes up almost half of the cell. There's hardly any cytoplasm to hold the rest of it in. Ah, but then again, the thing I might have mistaken for chloroplast might have been an inflated mitochondrion instead, that would make a little more sense." Caleb got up shakily and then shook his head, "Oh my god, I can _see_ your DNA. It shouldn't be _visible_ at this magnification. That's it, pack it away. It's freaking me out too much."

"But…" Shadow murmured, "Why is my blood like that?"

"Who knows, but if it always looks like that, then I suppose you're okay," the fox replied. "If you're really worried about it, maybe you should find a certified microbiologist, but I'm not sure where you're going to find one."

"Maybe later," the hedgehog agreed, "Tails, do you have any idea what your power could be?"

After this revelation, Tails didn't feel like sharing what he had seen before the camera had broken down. He didn't want to tell anyone until he'd made some proper judgements for himself and wasn't so surprised and frightened by the entire situation. Half of his mind was screaming 'Yay! I've got another power! I love surprises' while the other half was going 'Great, now Egghead has _another_ reason to hate me'.

"No… but thanks for the help."

* * *

><p><strong>Doctor Heartnet's analysis on 'Sparkfire' relationships. <strong>

_Subjects, Wave and Miles Prower, have adopted an odd role in this particular relationship, as what is normally considered the masculine role goes this time to the female, while the seemingly feminine role is adopted by Tails, for no other reason than the age difference between them. _

_Sufferers of Sparkfire relationships tend to be a mix of the less than compatible personality types like hotheads, angsters, smart-alecks, assholes, pricks, know-it-alls, bitches, bossy-boots, permanent-PMSers and perfectionists. Subjects are placed in the main categories 'ice-queen' which is a sub-division of 'bitch' and 'smart-alecks' although subject raynard was previously dominated by what was considered the 'pushover nerd' category. _

_Relationship has yet to reach the reciprocated stage. Both parties are stuck in the 'I refuse to make a move until they do' limbo, with Wave in the blissfully oblivious stage, while Miles has tripped a little over infatuation. While in this state, 'ice queen' is known for exhibiting behaviour such as flirting, teasing and general wall-breaking behaviour, while unaware of the intensity and affect this has on her counterpart until the significant other is taken out of proximity. _

'_Nerd' has a famed approach of acting clumsy and adorable while trying to attract attention from their other, especially if said nerd is a fox, because, Hell, if you had once chance at love you'd be scared too! Ahem, that was very unprofessional… Anyways, because of subject's young age and unfortunate naivety, despite his matured nature, his affection is unfound and instinctive, while his body and mouth refuse to cooperate with the thoughts in his head and the emotions that he feels. He has yet to understand that the times when she is most comfortable with him is when he isn't trying to woo her. _

_My predictions are that this game of cat and mouse will soon reach something that will hinder the relationship, like plugging up a volcano, and eventually the pressure will build up until it explodes. Here's hopin'._

_-C.H._

* * *

><p><em>I Never Said That It Was Easy <em>by Jesse Barrera

* * *

><p>Wave woke sluggishly, regretting all of the alcohol that she had consumed last night with a fiery passion. The dull throbbing felt like pounding more like it, as if she was taking a wrench and slamming it into her skull repeatedly. She spent most of the morning agonising over it, and come three o'clock she went downstairs to find Shadow, Caleb and Tails all working in relative silence. Well, Shadow and Tails anyway, she didn't understand what the other fox was doing down there.<p>

She walked over to Tails bench and looked around for her team's Gear, finding it conveniently placed so she could start working on it immediately, "Hi," she mumbled to Tails, receiving a small 'hey' in return. This struck her as odd, because she wasn't expecting a response without at least a little bit of emotion. She was more accustomed to a Tails that was enjoying seeing her in pain (or was she getting that reaction confused with someone else?) or a Tails that was helping her get over it and asking her if she was alright.

So, instead of working, she decided to inquire as to what was wrong, "Are you okay, Tails?"

The swallow received no response, prompting her to believe that the young fox didn't hear her. He just kept on adjusting his gear. The Grand Prix was tomorrow after all.

"Tails?"

She's said it louder then, but not loud enough so that Shadow and Caleb could hear them communicating.

"Tails!"

This time, Tails did respond, but it wasn't in the apologetic sweet way that she wanted. No, he seemed a little angry, agitated… possibly embarrassed? She couldn't tell.

"…What?"

"Did you want to talk about something?"

"No." His answer was abrupt, as if he was avoiding speaking with her entirely. What? What had she done? Was he _mad _at her for some reason?

"Are you alright?" She persisted, hoping that she would get a better reaction out of him. It wasn't working, so far, all she'd managed to receive were curt responses, emotionally controlled and short. His eyes blazed though with an unspoken emotion she couldn't understand, that was when she could see them that is, he was spending so much time looking away from her.

"Yes I am." _Not what I wanted to hear. _"Really."

"I think I can read you better than that, Kitten." She was hoping that he would eventually give up on this stick-up-the-ass façade, as he usually did. Tails was not the type to hold grudges after all, 'don't get mad, get even' type of personality. Nothing a little sweet talk couldn't handle.

"No," the swallow was surprised, this time, his words sounded just on the edge of a snarl, "you _can't._"

She couldn't help the hurt that was seeping into her voice, "…You don't _sound_ fine."

There was an abrupt slam and whatever metal instrument he was using hit the workbench with a slam, echoing about the entire garage before his eyes rose to meet hers, narrowed and _angry, _"You know what's wrong? Last night I had to close up shop early so I could drag you up the stairs!"

"Oh? This is about the money?" Easy solution then, "I can find a more honest way to earn ring, I promise."

"It isn't that," he replied, shaking his head as he looked down again. "You've already apologised for that."

She raised an eyebrow, feeling the slight chill in the air she recognised before Jet totally blew up at her, "No I haven't."

"You have," he said, his hands clenching into fists, "while you were drunk."

She placed a hand over her eyes and massaged them, as if her eyes couldn't take any more strain, "You can't consider everything I say while I'm drunk to be valid."

He snorted sarcastically, but when she looked at him there was real pain in his eyes, "Yeah…" his smile was fake, she could see cracks all throughout it, "I shouldn't."

"Tails…" Wave narrowed her eyes, not quite managing to ignore the quiver in his voice, "what did I say?"

"Oh, nothing of importance, considering all of it was _invalid._" He makes it look like he's about to leave, ripping off his dirty gloves and walking away, but she stops him.

"Hey! Don't walk away, Prower. I'm not done with you!"

"You've never _started_ with me!"

More confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He looks surprised for a second, embarrassed for another, and then he snarled, "Don't assume you _know _me! Screw it. This conversation is over."

"The Hell it is!" she growled, walking to the other side of the workbench with the stomp already in her steps. She completely forgot that Shadow and Caleb were still in the garage as well, and since it echoed, her voice was easily distinguishable, as was Tails' when he raised his, "Come back here!"

"I'm not some dog!... Uh… in _that _sense."

"What did I _say?_" she demanded now, eyes alight and furious simply because her frustration, and partly because fighting with Tails killed her a little inside.

He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, "You said something about how I'd surpass the adequacy of some previous romantic relationship."

What?

_Did I really let something like that slip?_

"…Why would I say that?"

Tails rolled his eyes, and for some reason it really _irked_ her, "Why _would_ you say that?"

"Yeah," she replied, looking at the ceiling, "I mean; I've never even considered you boyfriend material." _More like a little brother._

"Say, hypothetically, we were having a fight-"

She snorted.

"Why not?"

If he was going to be catty, then so was she. She didn't even understand why he was being so impossible today. He had to drag in his drunk friends all the time, and he did it with a laugh, sometimes saying he enjoyed the experience because it was good blackmail material. Was he annoyed because the camera broke? Or some such nonsense like that…

"You want me to list down your flaws? Because I really don't have the brain capacity."

"Ouch! Isn't that a lot coming from you?"

"You conceited little-"

"That's a load, coming from someone so bitchy and opinionated!" he growled, his fangs actually visible now, as if he was getting ready to strike. But she was intimidated.

"At least I have the _guts_ to speak! Unlike you, you walking doormat."

"I _have_ the guts!" he snarled, "but stating my opinions gets me in arguments, like _this_ one!"

"'Hypothetical!'" she cried, as if she couldn't piss him off anymore.

"Cut the crap, I'm not lying when I state all your flaws, just like you're really stating mine. There's another one! You're _always_ looking for a fight!"

She crossed her arms over her chest, "Fighting is how I get by in a world like this, or did MarDean forget to tell you that?"

As soon as she said it, she immediately regretted it. That was below the belt. Definitely. But, her pride was getting in the way of her compassion, as usual, and she refused to take it back. She saw brief emotion flash through his eyes; shock, shame, hurt and absolute anguish before his vulnerabilities were sealed behind a mask of anger once again.

"Was undermining a trait that you learnt from Chase**(iv)**, Wave?"

"No," she replied, with a very sarcastic smile. "It's how I deal with bitches."

He wasn't playing around when he answered her this time, "What? Seriously? You treat _everyone_ like that! Like they're _inferior. _Jet, Sonic, Storm, Shadow, Caleb, Amy, Rouge, Solaris, even _Cream! _What's wrong with you?" he cried.

Wave ranted, not caring about how loud she was, or how much of a mess she looked right now, with a throbbing headache and half of her moulting feathers missing, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? She's evil, am I the only one that sees that? You're always defending her! Are you in love with her or something?"

"What? _No!_ I'm in love with y-" he stopped himself right before he could finish the word, but it was too late. The both of them knew exactly what he was going to say. They both stared at each other in shock, large ice eyes reflected in baby blue. Tails clenched his fists and stood up straighter, releasing a shaky breath.

"…Tails?"

"I… I didn't mean…"

He paused for a second, looking honestly torn and regretful at what he had just blurted out without even _thinking_ about it before he turned around and walked away.

It had never hurt this much to see him go.

* * *

><p><strong>How to nicely break up with a girl: <strong>_With comments from Amy. _

**Sonic- **"Buy her lunch. Sit her down, and gently tell her that while she's a great person, you don't think it's going to work out." _Oh Sonic, you always know the right things to say… Unless you're saying that to me. You better not thinking about it, or I'm castrating you. _

**Blaze-** "Don't lie to her. Just tell her the truth. She'll understand." _That's right! Men are always making us out to be monsters. _

**Knuckles-** "Fuck her sister." _You better not be thinking about doing that to Julie. _

**Shadow-** "I have never been in this situation, nor do I need to comment." _With an attitude like that, Rouge's more likely to dump you than the other way around._

**Caleb- **"Tell her she's got nasty snatch gunk.**(v)**" _Excuse me? I so feel like slapping you right now!_

**Silver-** "I'm never breaking up with my love! We're going to be together forever." _Man, I wish I was an idealist like you sometimes._

**Cream- **"I agree with Silver." _So naïve. _

**Jet-** "Don't tell her you're breaking up with her, wait for the eventual blow-up when she catches you with another woman." _So Jet, how many girlfriends have you had?_

**Rouge- **"There is no nice way to break up with a girl, the only way to make amends is if she's waving goodbye with a new ring on every finger." _You go girl!_

**Storm-** "Run away. Run away and never return." _Now that has got to be one of the smartest things I've ever heard._

* * *

><p><em>Tally it Up, Settle the Score <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>"Ready for this?"<p>

"No."

The participants of the Black Arms who were competing in the Grand Prix had arrived very late last night, so they wouldn't have to deal with the mob rush in the morning. He'd been awake since two a.m. but that wasn't the reason Tails was so sluggish as the Egg Monitor booted up and their standings were displayed.

During the second race, the two-hundred and forty competitors that had survived the first race became ninety. When this race was finished, there would only be thirty-three racers left. At this rate, there would only be five races in total but things were going to become strenuous for the final twelve racers that were left behind.

The members of Black Arms Garage were in the front of the early bird crowd as they moved about the monitor, trying to locate their names. There were only eleven races, and Tails was in the tenth… along with… _Shadow?_

_Well, that certainly is a surprise. _

That means that both he _and_ Shadow were the other racer's moving targets, and there was a chance that Eggman had changed the game again so team work was impossible, just like they'd changed the course so that Tails couldn't stop in one spot. Would he be considered that much more of a threat than last time? What had he been doing to increase his importance again?

These thoughts confused him, because there were so many aspects of what he had been doing in the last few weeks that have led to this targeted state. In a way, the way that the rest of the world was treating him was some sick form of flattery. Tails felt like hitting himself for even thinking that. Shadow wouldn't be appeased to realise he was looking on the bright side of the situation like this, especially when the situation was this bleak.

This standing with the races meant that he was going to witness the rest of his team mates race before himself, which was an advantage because in the last two races he had been forced to race almost immediately. The first one participating in the races was Jet. He didn't have allies with him, but he was sure the hawk could handle himself. He _was_ however, facing off against Lightning Lynx of the Destructix, which thoroughly unnerved Tails. Jet wasn't phased whatsoever (even after Sonic had given Jet a 'Destructix 101' lesson) and waved them off for the first race with a smile.

He looked a little closer at his own race, noticing a familiar name in his own race; 'Predator Hawk'. A shiver went up his spine. He didn't like what he'd heard of the avian, especially considering the reaction that Wave had had to him the other day. Had they some kind of history she didn't want to tell him of? Had they been… lovers?

_What am I thinking? Gods… I have to keep my mind off her. I have to at least __**pretend**__I don't care. _

Tails shook his head and turned to the purple swallow, who was speaking to Storm in hushed tones in front of a monitor for Jet's race. Of course, Jet was in the front, he wasn't expecting anything otherwise. He leant against the wall next to Shadow for the most part, waiting for a race that he actually wanted to watch. Jet came first, as expected. Wave, who participated in the fourth race, came first as well, as did Storm. Of course, after all, the Babylon Rogues had been using Extreme Gear before they could walk.

Sonic and Knuckles' race was one that he didn't want to witness, but brought himself to one of the monitors anyway, because he was bored out of his mind where he was, and since his board wasn't in any immediate danger, and Shadow was the worst conversation buddy ever, he brought himself to witness his friends' race. The first two laps were normal, Sonic and Knuckles managing to achieve alright spots just behind second place. The third struck him. Just as Sonic was going to take over first place, three simultaneous attacks were launched at Knuckles, and in his surprise, the red echidna was thrown off his board.

This track happened to be called 'Ice Factory' and looked like the inside of a giant industrial plant. Tails wasn't looking forward to it, partly because Soleanna was a hot country and he'd never been outside of its fairly tropical climate, but mostly because he hadn't gotten much of a chance to practice his Extreme Gear over slippery surfaces.

"That red prick is getting what he deserves."

Tails and Shadow reacted to the voice, noticing it had come from the swarm of racers in front of the monitor.

"Rumour has it that he's entered the Grand Prix to pay off a debt from the Royal Court's hospital."

"Why would that be? He looks fine."

"Ain't him, idiot. His father's been stuck in there since the Crimson Night."

Well, Tails would have liked to say he knew the reason why Knuckles was so eager to enter the Grand Prix too, but unfortunately, he had been spending so much time with the Nocturnes that he hadn't had much time to speak with his friend since the beginning of summer vacation. Now that he knew that Locke was in hospital a lot of things made sense, and he felt guilty for entering on such selfish whims.

_Was this the reason he and Sonic were fighting before?_

He watched as Knuckles fought to get back on his board again. It was a pitiful sight. Knuckles had always been a beacon of strength to the rest of them when they couldn't stand. Now he was being torn apart by the other racers. It was just attack after attack after attack. Just when Tails thought it was hopeless, Sonic managed to escape the attacks from the other players and help Knuckles up, even though Knuckles looked like he wanted to refuse the help at first. Together, they made it to fourth and fifth place.

The way they were going, they could have easily made it to first with the amount of time they had left, but then one of the other players rammed Knuckles into the wall. He was too weak from the other attacks and looked like he was about to give up when Sonic defended the echidna, moments from the finish line, hindering the attackers board by smashing it with his own, and hurling Knuckles in front of him in the same way that Wave had done for Tails.

Knuckles came third.

Tails couldn't believe it; Sonic was out of the Grand Prix.

Out of all of the Black Arms, the fastest one alive was pushed out of the race first.

_This is ridiculous. _

He was so shocked by what had happened, Shadow had to jolt him out of his thoughts by forcing him into the elevator that led to the track. There were so many emotions running through him when the bright blue lights appeared before him, and the electricity of the starting line buzzed to life.

All around him, his life was falling apart.

His eyes caught predator hawk, and the bird smirked before he drew his finger across his neck in the universal sign for 'I'm going to slit your neck'.

And it was about to get worse.

"**On your marks!"**

His moves were automatic…

"**Get set…"**

But was it really worth it if Eggman could tear him apart without even… without even _being _here?

"**GO!"**

_I don't know. I just don't know. _

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i)** See Chapter 2: Deception in Progress, under the section _Teknopathic_ of the Jet Set Radio Future Soundtrack.

**(ii)** *Solean Tertiary Admission Rank, (Or final grad score).

**(iii)** See Chapter 6: I Don't Wanna Fee Your Pain, under the section So Much I Never Said by Artist vs. Poet.

**(iv) **See Chapter 30: Underneath the Cuts and Bruises, under the section _Running Away_ by Runner Runner.

**(v)** Quote from Misfit's Nathan, another one of Caleb's huge influences.

Soz guys. Kobie was too late with the drabble this time 'round. He's going through a tough time and says he'll try to have it next time.

**ღ**


	48. This World Won't Wait

**domi|note**

If you don't absorb all the information stated in this chapter, don't worry, there's going to be continuous references throughout the next few. I just needed to make sure all of them were stated now, for plot's sake.

Thanks to **Stonefaced610**, **HalfWright**, **TheFunGuy**, **LordCooler**, **Undead009**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **The Loner in the Shadows**,** Taichi L. Yagami**, **Exploder **and **superechidna** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Adolescents sense a secret, unique greatness in themselves that seeks expression. They gesture towards the heart when trying to express any of this, a significant clue to the whole affair. ~Joseph Chilton Pearce from Evolutions End.<br>_...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**_.  
>Chapter Forty Eight<br>_.  
>"When you feel the light surround you, don't push the chance away. Close your eyes, and say you'll come with me. Realise, maybe you're not alone in this, you won't know until you hold on tight, and begin to see. Realise this world wont wait for you and me."<br>_...  
>Waking Up <em>by Juilen-K

* * *

><p>Blankness. For some reason, his mind was a fog of dark, cloudy thoughts while the sounds buzzing right outside examination lie a finger's brush out of reach. And he couldn't have chosen the worst timing either! He'd frozen five seconds before the starting line, and it took Shadow shoving into him roughly to snap him out of his self-inflicted haze. He stumbled before regaining his balance, watching as Shadow's red-eyed gaze tore through him. Someone who didn't understand the hedgehog would have been intimidated, but he'd received that look many times during their training session. It was pretty much the Shadow equivalent of 'stay focused'.<p>

As soon as he'd hopped on the board the riders plummeted at an almost two-seventy degree angle, the wind whipping his bangs around violently. He forgot to put his goggles on, but it was too late by the time the first huge jump came. He was rocketed, spinning through the air like a yellow-white pinwheel. He panicked when the nose of his board hit the edge of a higher level, metal scraping across metal with a disgusting grating noise. He fell down with a rough slam, landing in fifth place, trying desperately to build up speed again.

He looked towards a monitor. Shadow was in first place, followed by Predator Hawk. Tails was feeling nauseous. Nauseous and cold. He didn't think it would be _this_ cold. It was like that one time Knuckles had stuffed him into the refrigerator for a particularly dastardly couch prank (he didn't particularly approve of Tails' hairdressing sense). He could see the clouds of breath in front of him, even when he'd shoved his goggles on to keep the bangs out of his face. It was hard to see anyway, with fog everywhere obscured by bright blue light.

He saw a right turn coming up, but panicked when something materialised right before him.

_What is that?_

It looked like… like…

_Turbulence! _

Appearing before him, and three other races along side him, was a half-pipe of visible air. Turbulence was known for being unpredictable, thus the reason why the rest of the riders were avoiding it like the plague. He didn't understand, only _extremely _skilled riders could _make_ turbulence… who had…

_Shadow!_

In his lifetime, Shadow had been the only one he'd actually seen make turbulence (except the Babylon Rogues when they were on the television), but the last time he had seen Shadow create something like this, he'd almost broken his board.

_Goes to show I'm not the only one that's improving. _

He was avoiding the turbulence as well, because one uncertain hurl would fly him into an unwanted direction and he just couldn't afford that. Unfortunately, fate was not being kindly to him today because as soon as he decided to steer away from the turbulence, another rider pushed him in, "Take that!"

Elevated more than three meters from the ground, Tails found he was loosing control of his gear, twisting and curving, throwing his weight every which way in an attempt to keep on the board, while the gravity sensors just we're working because of this new predicament. He couldn't believe this! He'd seen the Jet, Storm and… make turbulence when he was watching them on the TV all the time. What was the trick? It was something about not treating the Extreme Gear like a skateboard.

It might have been…

That's it! She'd told him to lean back when attempting to ride turbulence.

The thing about riding turbulence was that if you did it right, there was a sure-fire way to get in front of your opponents, and if you did it wrong… you were _fucked. _

At the moment, Tails was convincing himself that he was about to loose, and what he was going to say when he did, but that was when the board balanced itself out and started _accelerating. _The fox was amazed! He was now moving at _twice_ his top speed because of the turbulence. The scenery was flashing by in a black-blue blur, wind whizzing past him so fast it hurt. But that didn't matter because he was actually going to survive!

"**Look at that! Fox-trot's surprised us again with a stunt only known to Extreme Gear **_**masters!**_** Turbulence riding takes years of dedication, or the secret trick to those that can get it. Shadow the hedgehog should be commended for his ability to **_**make**_** it in the first place!"**

He noticed now that the turbulence was gradually reducing his size. When he realised why the alarm bells in his head started going off, "Shadow! Look out!"

The hedgehog, having the reflexes that he did, turned around at Tails' first shout, eyes going wide in alarm when he noticed the kit riding the turbulence he was leaving behind. Quick as lightning, he performed a small little zig-zag with his Gear (he was using skate-type gear this time 'round. Shadow owned two main Gears) to break the turbulence apart. Tails wobbled a bit upon exiting the tubular force, but made it alright in the end. But now that he was right beside Shadow, the turbulence had allowed him to overtake three more people, _including_ Predator Hawk.

He bet the human that pushed him into the turbulence was regretting it right now.

"Tails! Focus dammit!"

He snapped out of his thoughts just as strong force slammed into him from the side, pain rocketing up his neck and blinding him as he tumbled off his board, the burn from the dry ice below him and the jagged metal piercing his skin and slicing it open. He tried to regain his bearings as soon as possible, trying desperately to get his vision to focus, at least to see who had assaulted him. He wasn't surprised when he saw Predator Hawk raise his hand in a suave wave meant to irritate him.

"**Ouch. That looked like it hurt."**

He threw his board onto the ice again, stumbling when the ice over metal threw him this way and that. Tails decided that he hated the cold. Another player was approaching him from the side when he finally managed to get onto his gear again, and he looked further down the track, noticing that an arial ring accelerator was resting over half pipe that had been melded into the wall. This was his chance! Unfortunately, Predator Hawk had the same idea and Tails saw him aim his board in the direction of the half pipe. Tails, undeterred, swerved his board into nanite package lined across the track and was delighted to receive a the portable cable he had received in the last race.

With one hand holding the edge of his gear, he rocketed over the edge of the half-pipe performing a quick Kick Flip McTwist right off the edge of the ramp, whooping loudly when the accelerators carried him through quick succession over the track. Predator Hawk was right in front of him, and before the bird could reach the end of the line of accelerator rings, Tails used the cable he was carrying as a lasso to catch his board and pull it out from under him.

"**Smart thinking from Fox-trot! Sweeping Predator Hawk off his feet using one of the track weapons in a new way! Will he be able to recover fast enough to keep his place?"**

Tails pulled back the weapon, noticing that it hadn't dissolved into nanites yet, and kept the chord wrapped around his fist as he sped past the recovering bird, trying to catch up with Shadow. He swerved around some containers hanging from the ceiling that were acting as obstacles, noticing the feint trace of visible wind meaning that he was soon going to catch up with Shadow. When the black hedgehog was finally in sight, he started to create more turbulence from the uninterrupted speed he was tearing the course up with. Tails was about to try and enter his turbulence when he felt something crash into the tail of his board, spinning him out of control. Three different players, a black cat, Predator Hawk, and a human overtook him as he tried to get back on track, pulling himself away from the wall.

_Keep going! Get up and try again!_

Shadow had been drilling that into his head since they started training, so why was it so difficult?

The pain felt like lances sloughing off his skin, and the cold wasn't making it any better, it was as if he was stuck in a permanent fixture of this _burning, throbbing_ ache. Another massive jump was approaching, but he couldn't even perform a trick worthy of a B-grading with these wounds. He was bleeding profusely from somewhere on his leg, and he'd received a concussion from the last impact with the ground. The world was nothing but a neon blue blur. He heard the familiar sound that signified that he'd passed the starting line. Alright, second lap.

After the first big jump, he noticed that beneath him was seemingly nothingness. He couldn't see beyond the darkness, and a few meters ahead. Approaching a small trick ramp, he was scared out of his wits when someone knocked him down from the air, hands darting out just in time from face-planting with the floor.

"**Fox-trot is **_**not**_** having any luck with those vicious injuries. Can he even go on like that?"**

And Omochao was not instilling his confidence either.

His gear was shaking slightly, but he supposed that was because of his rocky momentum, and hit the thrusters to steady himself once again. If he ignored the pain, he could at least try to make it to third place, even if he was fifth place right now. He moved through most of the course at a steady speed, eyes flicking from monitor to monitor to find out what was happening, it wasn't until he encountered more turbulence that he actually started paying attention to what was happening in front of him. Cautiously pushing himself into the wind's path, he rode the air current until he overlapped the other human and the black cat, just passing Predator Hawk before Tails made a jump out of the turbulence, landing by Shadow's side.

He caught Shadow's gaze for a second, and noticed that his eyes had widened in shock. He was looking down at Tails' leg, so he supposed that he was gawking at the kit's injury. It didn't hurt as much as his other bloody cuts, but then again, the cold had numbed all of his senses.

"**Shadows doesn't seem to be trying to prevent Prower from racing alongside him, there's team work among the Black Arms mechanics today people."**

The both of them easily passed it through the next lap of the race. It was the final one where the problem's started to add up. Tails was feeling exhausted, and his vision was starting to blur in and out of focus. The noises dulled and some horrid emotion was clenching at his heart continuously, stabbing at it viciously as Predator Hawk once again rammed into his Gear.

"What the _Hell_ is your problem?" he snarled at the bird, as he tried to push himself off the wall of the ice tinged factory. The dry ice burned his skin, and drops of blood appeared beneath his fur, blotching it a disgusting brown colour.

"Stay _away_ from Wave," the blue bird growled, eyes flashing menacingly.

Tails was shocked by the revelation, discovering that the reason Predator had been so intent on hurting him was because he was-_had _been close to the swallow? Now he felt stupid. Electricity sparked behind his eyes as something protective and dangerous materialised in him, giving him enough power to push Predator Hawk off him and away from the wall.

"_You_ stay away from Wave," he snarled, baring his canines.

"Who's going to stop me, Fox-trot? Certainly not an overrated underdog like you."

"**Oh my, it looks like a fight is breaking out between Predator Hawk and Fox-trot."**

Tails' eyes flashed negative and the world turned dark before sparking to life. He was almost blinded by the shock. There was electricity running _absolutely __**everywhere**_. If he blinked a little more, the intensity of the vision started to dye down, and he focused his attention on the hawk… or more importantly, his _board. _

Suddenly, just like the camera before him, a premonition of the main air pump in the hawk's gear broke down, twisting in on itself so it wouldn't accept any more air. Tails blinked away the white threads sparking through his vision just in time to see the white smoke break through the panels of Predator Hawk's Extreme Gear and wobble a second before dropping to the ground. Tails took that as his chance to flee, seeing at the black cat from before was now catching up with him.

"**But it doesn't matter because it looks like board malfunction has pulled this bird out of the race."**

He moved around the obstacles smoothly, squawking in outrage when the black cat passed him easily by jumping onto one of the grind rails and speeding across the track effortlessly. He hit the thrusters in a desperate bit to catch up. Soon, the race of the finish line became a fight between Tails, the black cat and Shadow. Unbeknownst to him, the black cat was more of a threat than he seemed.

The fox watched, shocked, as tendrils of black seeped from the cat's hand and produced a… was that a _grenade?_

"Shadow! _Look out!_"

The cat jumped off the rails and murmured something right next to Shadow, something that must have meant something to him because right after he'd said it, Shadow's being started to glow and pulse red. Frightened, the cat threw the grenade right at the hedgehog, and, being the smart cat that he was, avoided the last jump, hopped of his board and climbed to the ceiling. If Tails was smart, and logical, he would have performed a u-turn immediately, but instead he stopped right before the explosion went off.

"**Woah! What was that?"**

Luckily, he was just at the edge of the bomb's smoke and wasn't affected by the fire of the attack at all; unfortunately, the steel frames around him weren't as durable. Immediately after the smoke cleared, the ceiling started _caving in _on them, effectively trapping them beneath rubble. Tails had a steel frame pinning one of his Tails down, and he noticed that the rubble was also stopping some of the other contestants from breaking through. He could a little bit of Shadow through the gap in the rubble; he was still sparking this dangerous looking red energy.

Asked later about what happened next, and Tails could recount with confidence that he had absolutely no idea.

They were engulfed with a searing heat, and for a second, the neon blue turned into a crimson red, along with the brief echo of a whispered _'chaos blast'. _

His board specs went off the charts, his turbo boosters malfunctioning as the weird red energy flooded his technology and seared his skin, while the illusion of the 'Ice Factory' melted down to reveal the shocked fans, trying to figure out exactly what had happened.

"**Some confusion on the track here people, out of the dust, we can see Shadow, Fox-trot, Eclipse the cat, of Megalo Station's team and… oh… oh no…"**

With a roar from the crown, he realised he had passed the finish line halfway through the board malfunction, and when it stopped with it's spasmodic tech disasters he saw his face on the monitor along with a bright blue '2nd place'. But then he realised why the crowd's roars didn't seem happy at all. Oh no, it looked like half of them were screaming instead of cheering.

His victory was short lived when he saw the black cat racer being pinned to the wall and hand-cuffed while some of the egg sentries came along to escort Shadow and Tails into a room for questioning, without the hand cuffs. It wasn't until he looked back that he noticed why. Predator Hawk, who hadn't really finished the race at all, was being cradled onto a stretcher with what looked like a broken leg, but… all four of the remaining contestants… crushed by the falling debris… were dead.

* * *

><p><em>I Write Sins Not Tragedies <em>by Panic! At The Disco

* * *

><p>"So, what's the verdict?"<p>

Leilani rolled her neck slowly as she tried to piece together what had happened. Of _course_ GUN had been to the Grand Prix undercover. Not being there was sheer idiocy, but it just so happened that tracking down this stupid little feline was one of Chris' sub missions, required to gain the credits to graduate, and handing him over to the Solean Police force just meant handing him over to Eggman again.

Caleb, Shadow, Rouge, Hope, Chris, Ash and Mytho had signed on for duty again. Each of their stories were unique, but they all tied into GUN at some point.

Caleb, being part of the Downunda Witness Protection Programme, served more purpose, with his connections, as an undercover agent than a defenceless little leech harbouring their support. So while Lottie reaped the benefits of GUN protection, her brother worked his third job as an Intel officer whenever he had the time, which was basically every moment he wasn't resting, working or sleeping. He had enough credentials as a student and a graduate, even if it was not from a GUN academy for this rank.

Shadow, as almost everyone knew now, was a former GUN agent that was once again taking his tests and getting the mandatory hours to become one once again. Most of these missions had been guided under Rouge, who had yet to tell her superiors of her 'special relationship' with her student. They all believed because of the camaraderie between them four years ago, they'd be a perfect match, and they were.

Rouge's original mission was to make sure that Shadow's original status did not interfere with the events of the Grand Prix and didn't affect the safety of all that knew him. Now that the mission was compromised, she was in charge of training Shadow and reminding him of his _true_ powers, while being on stand-by for anything that GUN had in mind, which mostly had everything to do with keeping Eggman lieutenants at bay.

Hope, being in the same grade as Chris, was here on her last missions as well to gain enough credits to graduate from the Academy. She was technician like Chris, but a little less in the electronic field and more in the electronic field, handing firearms, transportation, etcetera. Leilani had been her strategist tutor back when the both of them were still in the academy, and were still good friends now, despite spending four year apart.

Everyone knew Chris' story.

Now Ash's story was a little different. He was actually here because the mongoose's mutant power fell hand in hand with Arly's, and had been dragged along to understand the nature of her weird text message, which went hand in hand with the current investigation. Ash had graduated GUN Academy last year as well, having been going steady with Mina after one year dating in Downunda after she had travelled there for a concert with her last talent agency. He'd forgotten his earlier aspirations to become her band manager, but now that the Forget-Me-Knots hadn't come home to find it in strife, Mina refused to leave, having decided to join the Freedom Fighters once again to make sure everyone was okay. If she was going to fight against Eggman, he might as well make himself useful as well.

Mytho was here because he needed to review the status of everything revolving around the Black Arms, which was he basis for what was now a major threat to Eggman, with Sonic, the ex-leader of the Freedom Fighters taking charge against him, Tails Prower, a rebel who was the primary inspiration of hope among all mutants, Knuckles the echidna, the last heir to a legendary power source the Black Arms and the Babylonians used to harness mutant power and Shadow the hedgehog, ex-soon-to-be-ex GUN agent and the subject of something that intertwines with Eggman's past.

Leilani's apartment block had also been in trouble, harbouring firstly, GUN agents, and secondly, The Violet Duchess who now had a bounty under her head because she had been blamed for starting the fire at the Castle Town Orphanage. It didn't help that Caleb, ie. Gabriel Winchester, wanted heir to Selina Heartnet's fortune, frequented the place a lot. Like they were doing _now. _

"From what Thorndyke has managed to gather by hacking into the Eggdome's security cameras, the cat that threw in the grenade was named Eclipse," she explained, pointing to a profile picture that appeared on Chris' monitor. "Apparently, he's a rookie apprentice from the Yagyu clan. They're predominantly bat-oriented, but as always, each of the houses has a small number of members that don't belong to their main species."

"Do we have an agent monitoring this clan?" Mytho asked.

"Of course. He we have three undercover, while Heartnet is meeting up with one that has requested special attention on the evening of the fourth race."

Mytho turned to Heartnet, but he wouldn't meet his eyes. Caleb scowled, "And you're going in unprepared?"

"No, Sir," he gritted his teeth, "Mongoose is coming with me to scope out the possible identity of the Yagyu clan member. If our suspicions are correct, then his power should be able to cancel out any irregularities and possible manipulations."

"What is your power?" the wolf asked curiously.

"Tearing apart sound, Sir. My power is much like Ms Truscott's instead of dedicating more power to enchant, I nullify."

"Good, good. What of the Eclipse character? Has he been released yet?"

"No," Thorndyke informed him. But out agent on the inside of the Solean Police department's feedback says someone is paying and negotiating his bail as we speak."

"Normally," Rouge explained, "on the charge of accidental murder, such as bringing a hand grenade into a race, resulting in the death of four innocents, would result in an immediate life sentence. Unfortunately, for him, some of Soleanna's best lawyers are on the job, not to mention the entire court system is corrupt." Stretched languidly before continuing, "One of the rules is that weapons cannot be taken into the race track prior to the race, but this particular's mutant has a transportation ability found in dark shadows. He can teleport himself and other objects using something the Yagyu clam call 'dark corridors', and transported the grenade in that way."

"And not just any grenade," Hope interrupted, pulling her blond hair away from her eyes, "this particular one's main components are created from red and orange Wisp DNA, meant to explode and burn everything in its wake. Combining that with the traditional incendiary for a typical M67 grenade, and you've got enough to knock down a little bit of a racing track, such as that particular section. This cat was backed up by some _powerful _people. In a way we're lucky. That grenade covered up for the fact that the second blast that shook apart the track was actually Shadow."

The hedgehog in question looked indifferent to the statement.

Rouge sighed, "This cat was the real one that was responsible for the fire at Castle Town Orphanage a week or so ago."

Caleb clenched his fists.

"Because of this situation," Leilani started speaking, "our spy on the Grand Prix Board of Representatives tells us that one of the member said 'it would be in our best interests to remove mutants from the races entirely'. But Eggman seemed adamant on keeping them there, which means either he's grown a tolerance for them, or he's more interested in money."

"If I had to think like the madman," Caleb suggested, "someone that has a deep and unreasonable sense of justice in genocide, there isn't going to be a reason to be swayed unless it affects everyone with epic proportions. There hasn't been anything of that scale. Eggman's either forgotten his original purpose, has something _else_ in mind, or he could be thinking… 'don't worry, I'll get to them later'."

"Which could mean…?" Mytho murmured.

"He _could_ be planning another Massacre!" he explained, "Eggman might be rich, but he isn't infinitely wealthy, and mutant progression and power has increased since the last time he was seen. What does it take to wipe out an entire species? Money. What does the Grand Prix bring in? Money. What makes the Grand Prix so popular? People like Prower and Shadow, The Freedom Fighters, The Destructix, all of those people that can perform magnificent tricks and have a _reason_ for fighting? I'd say around eighty-five percent of them are mutant."

"He has a point," Shadow replied, "if you're going to try and understand the mind of a mad man, it's a good idea to ask an empath under the training of a psychologist."

"We'll put it into consideration, meaning we need our spy in the royal treasury bringing a report on Eggman's finances." The wolf made a note of it in a little black book, placing it into his waist pocket. "What is being done about Eggman's own spies?"

"Some of Eggman's loose-lipped AI's by the name of Decoe and Bocoe have revealed some information," Chris explained, bringing up the robotic scans on his computer. "Apparently this plan has been in progression for two years, and thus Eggman theoretically could have been planting spies for the last two years in all the major garages just to monitor this progress and make sure everything was right for this race."

"Does that include Black Arms?" Shadow asked.

"Especially Black Arms."

"Heartnet, you're the positioned agent, have you narrowed down the suspects?" Mytho murmured. It was amazing sometimes, how he could put aside feeling to be a real commander.

"The newest additions to Black Arms include Silver the hedgehog, Blaze the cat and daughter of The Violet Duke plus the recently deceased Duchess Lume and Marine the raccoon, Blaze's former mechanic. So far, I've narrowed down the possibility of an Eggman spy to be either Blaze or Silver. Silver has a mysterious past, with almost no official documentation and barely any track record outside of petty theft, despite being a major thief up until joining Black Arms. This could mean that Eggman is destroying his records in exchange for information on the Black Arms inhabitant. He hasn't however, ratted out my past, meaning that he's not interested in money he could get from my father, which means Eggman could be offering him something greater.

"However, Duchess Blaze has the motive. She has a bounty on her head, and her mother was associated with Eggman already. Blaze's father is in Royal Court Hospital, and without sufficient funding he could die. Eggman might very well be blackmailing Blaze into feeding him information about everyone there, just to keep her father alive. She could have been conspiring with the cat that burned down the orphanage, because a bounty on her head means more support from the rest of the Black Arms. She has already chosen to situate herself in this very building, much closer to the Black Arms than we originally thought, no? Plus, despite having feelings for Silver, she continues to show affection to Sonic, leading me to the fact that she could be trying to manipulate someone that's a part of a bigger organisation, such as the Freedom Fighters.

"Marine, while being very young, cannot be ruled out, simply because she is Blaze's friend. I've done some intensive interviewing with her, since she seems to be the weakest link out of the three, but she hasn't revealed anything so far. Any and all of their attempts to come closer to any of the Black Arms members will be monitored by Shadow, Rouge and I," Caleb finished.

"Does that have everything wrapped up for now?"

"Not nearly," Leilani rolled her eyes.

"We're going to need the Chaotix Squad on the mission involving Eclipse the cat. See if Espio can use some former contacts to get in touch and learn any more information. Heartnet, you, Shadow, Rouge and Ash will monitor the Black Arms situation and try to keep everyone safe while trying to worm out a possible Eggman spy. Cesario, Kintobor, Thorndyke, you three are going to be handling a few missions at the same time. Cesario, you're in charge of the both of them; you'll be leading with Hope to find Eclipse's suppliers. We need the basis of who's supporting their movements so we can take them out. You'll also need to provide physical assistance to Thorndyke and another technical division team in finding Eggman's finances and all around supply information. For this, you're going to need backup, and including the backup technical division team, I'm also re-instating your rank as Lieutenant under the captain in this jurisdiction who is…"

"Rico," she replied, pausing when she noticed Mytho's eyebrow rise expectantly. "Sorry, Sir. Rico Dellaire, formerly of Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha 2."

"Thank you. I'm going to asking reports from the spies to discover what the sad state of law and politics is going around here. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir!"

* * *

><p><strong>Worst school experiences…<strong>

**Rouge-** "Oh my God, the school councillor before Topaz called me into the office this one time and gave me a whole packet of condoms telling me to 'be careful'. How rude."

**Blaze-** "At Royal Court Academy I almost set the science labs on fire during chemistry class."

**Jet-** "I took Wave to the eighth grade dance. It was kind of like taking my sister."

**Tails-** "One time, Sonic dared me to rewire the school's hard drives to play pornography whenever someone logged into a computer. The entire school got detention until someone fessed up."

**Best school experiences…**

**Rouge- **"Putting those condoms to use~" *wink wink* (blowing them up and hanging them from a tree in the courtyard with Caleb and Arly's help.)

**Blaze-** "Setting Princess Elise's uniform on fire in the process."

**Jet-** "It just so happens that Wave was the hottest chick in the grade. Hush though, she doesn't know that."

**Tails-** "They were the _best_ detentions ever. Plus when I did eventually fess up I was hailed as a hero for around a year."

* * *

><p><em>Lions! <em>by Lights

* * *

><p>"No."<p>

"C'mon, I need your help."

"No."

"I'll buy you lunch."

"Alright, _fine_. Since you need me that much."

Tails rolled his eyes, sending his EG into compact form before placing it in his backpack. They were moving to the Tar Pits, the industrial section of Soleanna still under construction, because nothing made for a good parkour lesson than death defying stunts around mills that would sooner smoosh you into dust. But apparently Caleb and Silver passed through the construction all the time and according to them, it was even an enjoyable affair, considering how many times you could _die_ before you reached the end of this particular area.

_Give me a disaster, give me an emergency.  
>Stand me at the head of the crusade without a remedy.<br>Show me to the shipwreck, show me how your bones shake,  
>And when I'm at the edge of sorrow's blade, show me how a heart breaks.<em>

"Doesn't it bother you how easily you can be bought?" Tails asked the brown-furred fox, grinning cheekily.

Caleb raised an eyebrow and smiled back, "Are you implying something, Prower?"

"Who? Me?"

After they'd gotten him lunch and moved towards the Tar Pits, Silver explained exactly why he needed the fox's assistance, "Alright, so I needed you here because I'm allowed to be a little clumsy with my free running, since I can actually stop myself from bodily harm with telekinesis. Besides, my method of free-running was almost completely self-taught. Yours is bound to be different to mine."

_Be steady on your feet,  
>No matter the trouble you meet.<em>

"Yes, unlike Silver, I _can't_ fly. Thank you for that very obvious statement," Silver did a sarcastic little bow before allowing him to continue. "My free-running abilities are a spin on GUN cadet training. Obstacle courses combined with free-thinking. It was necessary to learn after my Extreme Gear trauma. My style isn't perfect, but I've got the basics down to a t, because it's screwed into my training that you can't do anything advanced without perfecting the basics first. Shaky foundation and all that."

"Nice analogy, but who's teaching me?"

"I am," Silver declared, "but if I'm doing something wrong, Heartnet will show you what to do."

"So expect a lot of input from me," Caleb teased.

"Shut up!" Silver seethed, moving towards their first obstacle. It was a two meter jump. Nothing big. Nothing large by any means, except, from where they were the drop between the gaps was around _two hundred _meters deep, "Now, for your rite of passage."

_Lions make you brave!  
>Giants give you faith.<br>Death is a charade,  
>You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid.<em>

"Are you _kidding_ me? No!" Tails protested, standing back from the edge and realising exactly how long it was since he'd been able to fly. His tails flopped behind him like dead weight now.

"C'mon Tails," Silver urged, golden eyes honest and reassuring, "most free-running activities you're going to need whenever crazy mobsters or robots are chasing you require more courage than skill. And before we build up the skill, we're going to need the confidence first."

"My GUN instructors made us practice this jump over a pool of piranhas," Caleb suggested, as if that would help.

_Find me at the bottom looking at the vultures,  
>Standing in the heart of the disease following the hard curves.<br>I'm looking for the thunder, I'm looking for the blackness.  
>I'm learning how to get up off my knees and all it takes is practice.<em>

"Was that necessary?" Tails asked in horror.

"No, they were just sadistic fuckers that wanted us to shit our pants."

"Is that what you're trying to do to me?" Tails asked, inching back from the edge.

"Partly," Caleb stepped forward, making a gesture towards the gap. "A really awesome person once told me that anything impossible is three parts skill and seven parts faith."

_Be ready on your feet,  
>No matter the trouble you meet.<em>

"Why _seven?_"

"Because luck is part of the equation too," he replied, finishing the sandwich that he was eating and stepping back. He didn't even step back enough to get a good running distance, but he cleared the gap with about a meter to spare. He waved from the other side, "See? You don't need to fly."

_Lions make you brave!  
>Giants give you faith.<br>Death is a charade,  
>You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid.<em>

"C'mon!" Silver said, placing his hands on Tails' shoulders, "You're Tails Prower! You've defeated Egg Giants and won races against some of the most fearsome guys in Soleanna. What's a measly little jump compared to that?"

"Yeah…" Tails grinned, "You're right."

_I'm not the hunter, I'm not the marked.  
>Just looking for wisdom in the dark.<em>

"Just run up to the edge…" he didn't need to finish his sentence. With three steady bounds Tails threw himself off the edge of the gap.

_Lions make you brave!  
>Giants give you faith.<br>Death is a charade,  
>You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid.<em>

And for a second he could fly again.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i)** See Chapter 34: Flames to Embers, under the section _Innocent _by Taylor Swift.

**(ii)** See Chapter 16: Drown Us From The Inside, under the section _I need a dollar _by Aloe Blacc.

**(iii)** See Chapter 14: Unsaid and Done, under the section _Iridescent _by Linkin Park.

**(iv) **See Chapter 42: Free Fallin', under the section _Run Rabbit Run _by The Hoosiers.

**(v) **See Chapter 40: I just don't feel safe anymore, under the section Blaze visiting her father in hospital.

**(vi)** See Chapter 44: Counting Opportunities, under the section _I want it all/We will rock you Mash Up _by Queen and Armageddon.

**ღ**


	49. The Words I Need To Hear

**domi|note**

Oh my goodness, over 500 reviews! Thanks _so_ much guys!

**NOTE: **Just in case you wanted to know, when I say 'negative' when referring to Tails' shiny new power, I mean in colourscape, you know when you turn a picture's colours backwards? Alternatively, you can look up 'Eagle Vision' from Assassins Creed and you can see what I envision when I'm writing.

Thanks to **DontCrossTheFox**, **Exploder**, **LordCooler**, **Eclipse Tha Chill Wolf**, **HalfWright**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Stonefaced610**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **yossarian**, **superechidna**, **kobiee** and **lollieplue** for reviewing the last chapter.

**ficfan412- **Do you really think so? I believe this one was around six-thousand words, while I'm sure I've made some around ten-thousand words long.

**yossarian- **Not a fan of their epic fight against seafood? Oh well. Can't please everyone. Thanks for pointing out, I'll fix it when I've got the time.

TY to **Pixel** for beta-ing, and putting up with my non-sensical grammar.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills. ~Lord Buddha<br>_...**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**_.  
>Chapter Forty-Nine<br>_.  
>"When you're gone, the words I need to hear to always get me through the day, and make it ok. I miss you."<br>_...  
>Decode <em>by Paramore

* * *

><p>His hands ghosted over the parts, easily able to identify most of them. A Ingersoll Rand 3 over eight inches reversible drill 7802RA. A TEKTON 1701 1 over 2-Inch Drive by 15-Inch Pro Flex Breaker Bar. A Bosch GSB21-2RE Professional 1100W Impact by specifications and the familiar diversity of mechanical tools he almost felt <em>normal<em> again, which was something he sorely needed after the amount of crap that had been happening lately.

Since Sonic wasn't in the Grand Prix any more he was focusing his attention on far more dangerous things, like speaking with the Freedom Fighters once again and investigating Eggman's plans. Because of this, he was hardly ever home, and when he was, he was worn out and wouldn't talk about anything else but taking Eggman down. Something else that he was speaking about unnerved Tails, and that was the odds and conspiracies Sonic was pulling together. He wasn't just plucking them from thin air. Sally and the rest of the politically savvy FF have been putting together the tension and apprehension between Eggman's back up, Eggman's strange behaviour concerning the Grand Prix, and the sudden involvement in GUN. Something wasn't right, and Tails was hard pressed to deny it either.

He didn't _want_ to dwell on something like this, but… It just wouldn't leave him alone and he didn't know what to do about it. No matter what he just couldn't avoid really _uncomfortable_ topics. If he wasn't focusing on Eggman conspiracies and 'black wings' nonsense, he was focusing on Extreme Gear injuries which eventually led to thoughts about Predator Hawk's threat before they were flooded by the suppressed emotion he'd tried to hold back concerning anything involving Wave.

He couldn't help it. Everything reminded him of her.

They couldn't talk, which was awkward because they lived in the same house. Sure, The Babylon Rogues could move out but then they would both feel guilty as burdens to their teams.

So he focused now on splurging his cash on the tools that desperately needed replacing… but now that he thought about it, business wasn't exactly booming as it was. He sighed. Were they really the kind of garage that needed to resort to cheap advertising methods to get noticed? Or was all of the bad media enough to deter their actions?

"Hey, are you going to buy that?" Shadow murmured, pointing at a spanner that Tails had been holding.

"Oh? Hmm," he thought, looking back at the tool and then putting it back. Normally buying new tools made him happy, but he didn't particularly feel like doing anything today. They had a few days before the race. Apparently the incident from the last one had convinced the judges to simply speed up the events instead of hinder them. Tails wanted to know what was up. It was weird, wasn't it? Shouldn't something like that be investigated thoroughly before any more races are put to action? Didn't they have _any_ regard for public safety? Of course, racers could pull out whenever they wanted, and they signed an agreement that said any injury in the race could not be accounted towards them, but… still…

"Tails." Shadow's voice was more insistent this time.

"Sorry," he mumbled quietly before shaking his head and putting it back. "I don't really want to get anything today."

"Well, if you've finished, I'd like to get my purchase," he said, carting around what looked like a new spray gun.

He followed Shadow to the counter. They used to do this all the time before the Grand Prix; parts shopping. It was soothing, and he'd never been in a mood when even buying new parts didn't cheer him up, but there was a first time for everything, he supposed. At firstthey had been irritated, because the cashier was more interested in continuing his conversation than Shadow's purchase, until Tails stopped Shadow from interjecting, because the subject was particularly interesting.

The cashier was speaking to a grey wolf sitting in the back who was flicking through a sports magazine, "Yeah. They're saying that this race has something to do with the designs you found when you were breaking in the Violet Manor**(i)**."

"Oh man, I still haven't gotten over the fact that I could have seen the Tails Doll while I was there. Really scary stuff. I almost shat myself when I found out he was there on the news."

"Were those designs leaked over the internet? How come they only found out about it now?" the cashier asked him.

The grey wolf shrugged, "Someone broke into the Violet Manor again maybe? Could have been Eggman leaking them out himself? The legalisation of Extreme Gear**(ii)** ain't going to make him anymore money if no one's gonna buy his gear, and if it ain't better 'en anything you can get at the Black Arms, then why would someone wanna waste their rings?"

"Who knows? Maybe Egghead's Gear will be better."

Tails didn't like the possibility, but he couldn't rule out that that might have been the answer. Especially since he'd apparently managed to acquire ancient Babylonian designs**(iii)**. That moment was when Shadow lost his patience, and promptly interrupted their conversation by clearing his throat… _loudly._

The cashier looked at Shadow and Tails, both with angry and unimpressed expressions before he cracked up laughing, turning towards the flushing grey-furred wolf, "Man! You are an _asshole!_ I can't believe you didn't tell me that the _best_ racers in the Prix were here!"

Shadow rolled his ruby eyes skyward. Tails smiled embarrassingly and scratched his bangs.

"I expect a discount for that comment," Shadow demanded in a voice that sounded awfully commanding for a monotone.

"Yeah! Sure, Shadow, old buddy," the cashier grinned, but he looked like he was trying to stave off his eventual doom, "fifty percent off for the both of you! Haha! Okay? We'regood now right? Please don't kill me!"

"Do you hear that,Tails?" Shadow smirked, "Go and grab those parts that you were looking at before."

"No," the fox grinned, "don't be mean Shadow." He turned to the terrified cashier, "He was just joking." He let out a visible sign of relief and scanned Shadow's purchase, the black hedgehog cursing under his breath.

When the two made it back to the garage, Tails met up with Blaze and asked her to examine the board they'd taken from The Violet Manor. She had been keeping it at the Black Arms. Caleb and Silver descended the stairs chatting when they saw Blaze walking across the street. Now, Blaze had visited an obliten (more commonly known as a memory eraser) and even if she didn't remember Silver's more than awkward confession, Silver did, and he was making it awkward for the both of them, in turn, affecting everyone else. So when the both of them locked eyes, there was a massive gap in conversation before everyone resumed what they were doing.

"Um…" the white hedgehog elbowed Caleb's ribs and the fox thought of something to break the awkward silence.

"If you stretch rabbits out they look like furry worms?" he suggested.

"No?" Tails murmured.

"How about, 'I was so far in the closet, I found Narnia?'."

Blaze laughed breathily and Shadow shrugged, "Okay, that works."

"Hey, what's happening?" Rouge strutted in from the entrance to the garage to examine what they were doing, receiving a 'look' from Shadow. Tails didn't understand the full communication between them, but he could tell a message passed with the glance that conveyed more than a simple hello.

Something felt amiss, but he couldn't tell what it was.

He placed his hands on the workbench before Blaze's gear and opened up a nearby laptop, looking at the Eggman designed gears that had been leaked onto the internet. He stared at Blaze with a questionable stare, "Blaze… these match…"

_These could very well be the designs that I saw at the Violet Manor. _**(iv)**

"What? But I-" she stammered. She didn't know what to say.

Blaze's gear _had_ been found by Tails in the Jacaranda slaughter, near designs that Tails _knew_ were from Eggman because they were branded with the Egg logo, but… Blaze's were exactly the same. Why wouldn't she tell them this?

_"Aww, I've been looking all over for this."_

_"It's yours?"_

_"Yes. I had it made while my dad wasn't looking, I would have gone to you Tails; but Dad was tailing Silver, and it could have led back to your garage."_

_"No! It's alright, where'd you get it?"_

_"Hey! Can we have this conversation later?" _**(v)**

Tails scoffed, looking down at the evidence, "Um, Blaze. Why didn't you tell us your board was made by Eggman?" he couldn't help slip in the accusation in his tone. He felt a little pissed off, a little betrayed that she had kept something so vital from them.

"I didn't…" she replied dejectedly. "I didn't know Eggman made them."

"Well then how did you get it?" Shadow demanded, his tone seething rage.

"One of my father's representatives brought a friend along one day and this elderly man offered to make me a Gear as a prototype for a new range. He seemed really nice, so I gave in and allowed him to make one for me. I didn't know he had contact with Eggman, I swear!" she pleaded, golden eyes sad with remorse. Tails' expression of anger and betrayal softened to sadness and disappointment. He turned to the gear and before he could stop it, the strange power welling up within him forced his eyesight into negative again.**(vi)**

Something pulsing red seeped into the lines of electricity within the gear, and without thinking, Tails blinked his eyes. The negative vision had disappeared, but he could still see the outline of the Gear and its insides, so he opened it and started shredding it apart. He saw Blaze and Shadow regard him with interest before he grabbed a nearby screwdriver and went about picking something that was still ebbing red in his vision. Something flew out of the Extreme Gear, but Shadow was quick enough to catch it.

"Is this…?"

"That's a _voice recording_ monitor!" Rouge announced, turning to Blaze with suspicion.

"I swear-" she placed her hand on her chest, "I had _absolutely __**no**_ _idea _that was there!"

Shadow snatched the microscopic technology out of Tails' hand and examined it further, "Not only that, it's a _tracking_ device."

Blaze backed up from them, horror reflecting in her wide golden eyes, "I… I never… I didn't…" She sounded like she was on the edge of tears.

"You realise that with this, Eggman has _already_ tracked us down, if Metal Sonic's attack**(vii)** was any indication. I was wondering -for weeks- how he found out, considering this building, like many of the Crisis City infrastructure, isn't registered."

"And who _knows_ what else they could have learnt because of _this,_" Rouge growled, snatching the device and crushing it in her hands. Tails had never seen the both of them like this, they were _truly_ ferocious. He'd _hate_ to see how the both of them operated when they were _fighting_. "You _do _know we conduct GUN business here not only because Shadow _lives_ here but because we're sure Tails has this place _debugged?_"

"I'm sorry!" Blaze screamed. "I promise you, I didn't know that it was inside the board!" She looked around like a deer in headlights, catching Silver's hands in the process, "Silver! You believe me, right?"

Tails' eyes darted between the Violet Duchess, Shadow and Rouge, to Silver and Caleb, stuck in this massive conflict with no clear answer. The white hedgehog looked down, looking so torn that he didn't know what he did. He did the only thing he could have in that situation. He decided that he couldn't take the tension anymore and promptly grabbed Rouge and Shadow's hand, dragging them upstairs.

"I… Caleb… is she telling the truth?" Silver demanded.

"You're serious?" Blaze asked, hurt and fury in her voice. "You seriously need to ask this asshole if I'm _lying _or not? I'm your _best friend!_ I've known you since you were _six! _And you're telling me you can't trust me?"

"Ah…" Silver looked down, but in the end, he turned to Caleb for confirmation. Caleb looked between the sadly, shrugged, hopped off the bench and walked away.

* * *

><p><em>I'm With You<em> by Avril Lavigne

* * *

><p>"I'm glad you came with me Sonic, I've been meaning to do this for a long time now, but I just keep getting so distracted," Tails admitted as they rounded the corner to get to Crisis City cemetery. Sonic was carting Amadeus' cross while Tails was holding Rosemary's.<p>

"I get you there, buddy. There's a lot to be distracted by, what with all the conspiracies and getting prepped for these death-defying races," he grinned.

"All in a day's work, right?"

They were about to cross the threshold to the burnt remains of the scarred land when they noticed something. The entrance of the land was being guarded. They walked up to them, humans, and decided to ask what was up, "Hey gents. Why aren't we allowed into the cemetery?"

"This land has officially been bought," the guard replied.

"_Bought?" _Tails replied, seething, "That's _ridiculous! _This is _sacred_ land, gifted from the ancestors that came before us. It can't be _bought!_"

"By who?" Sonic demanded.

"Jules Hedgehog. If you have a problem, take it up with him**(viii)**."

"I will!" Sonic snarled at them before grabbing Tails and hauling him back home. As if everything _else_ hadn't gone wrong today.

Tails should have seen it coming, should have been shocked when Blaze stormed out of the Black Arms crying her eyes out, and Silver following behind her looking like he'd just been slapped. Caleb was in the corner looking awkward and Rouge, Amy and Shadow were having a fight. Why couldn't they do that upstairs? Why had his workshop, his sanctuary, become the resident place of conflict? They couldn't do it on the roof so that they could throw themselves off the building afterwards? Tails settled next to Caleb near the working benches while Sonic tried to break up the fighting.

"For the love of- Can't you think of _anyone_ but yourself?" Amy snarled at the bat, green eyes glinting dangerously. "You think that just because you're beautiful means you can get your way all the time?"

"No! That is not how I think you _spoiled __**brat!**_" Rouge replied, clenching her fists in rage.

"Woah, ladies," Sonic slipped into the conversation quickly, putting himself in the middle of the confrontation. "What seems to be the problem here?"

Amy got onto her tip-toes and whispered what was happening in Sonic's ear, and Tails watched as his expression darkened considerably. "Now, c'mon Rouge. You gotta admit that Amy has a point."

"No, she doesn't, and you're a hypocrite for saying that," she replied coolly, aquamarine eyes sparking. Neither of them looked very happy, especially Shadow who looked like he was about as out of the loop as Caleb and Tails, innocent bystanders that couldn't go to the upstairs level because the four of them were blocking the door. "Shadow has a right to know."

"Right to know _what?_" the hedgehog demanded, his cool and seemingly calm voice went ignored by the three as they continued to argue about a subject that didn't make sense.

"You _know_ what could happen if he figures out!" Amy screeched. "What good will it do him? What good will it do anyone in this city?"

"How can you stand idly by? Shadow has been working to regain his memory for the last _four_ years, and you guys have had the memory trigger all this time! But… you're not giving it to him?"

"Don't _you_ have the memory trigger too?" Sonic asked.

"_No! _It was a requirement of all the GUN agents on the last Black Advent mission to have their memories erased of everything that had happened, but there are some people that got them back automatically. You guys are the only ones, apart from a select few, that actually know what the trigger word is," Rouge explained, and Tails wished he knew what was happening, desperately. It was like watching a soap opera in a different language with no subtitles.

"We're _not_ giving it to you. You know perfectly well what could happen if he finds out, and I'm not willing to do that much damage control again," Amy replied, eyes turning towards the floor.

"But it isn't your _right!_" Rouge exclaimed angrily, looking like she was on the edge of hurting the two.

"Rouge," Sonic placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sometimes people have to make sacrifices for the greater good."

"Yes, Sonic," Rouge replied, "but the thing is, _you're_ not supposed to make those decisions for him. Shadow is a grown adult, much older than you**(ix)**, and he should be able to make those decisions himself."

"Hey! I don't appreciate being spoken about like I'm not here!" the black-furred hedgehog protested.

"You're just targeting Shadow because you're alone! And you know no one else will love you unless Shadow sees how truly _broken_ he is."

"What the _fuck_ do you mean?" Shadow demanded. "Rouge isn't in _love_ with me. We're just friends with benefits."

"Yeah, Rouge," Sonic glowered, "you're one to talk about holding secrets. Better tell Shadow _your_ dirty little secret before you tell him his."

"_Fine,"_ she seethed, fangs visible in her scowls as she turned to Shadow, "It's true, Shadow. I harbour feelings for you stronger than a fuck-buddy. But to call them love would be… careless. I _was_ in love with you, long ago. But I can't be sure now. We have no time for such things."

"What do you-?"

"Our relationship has been more intimate than this. And I lied the day I met you… the second time. We actually _did_ sleep together, back at Downunda GUN Academy."

Shadow absorbed this information readily, quick to retort with another question, "But… why would you lie to me like that?"

Rouge rubbed her elbow and stared at the floor as she answered, "Because I had recently regained the memories myself. And after some observation," Tails would have called that observation 'stalking', "I realised that you would not react to me properly if I told the truth and said that we'd slept together. You would have though me insane,wouldn't you? Especially if I said I had before the Crimson Night even occurred."

"All of you? All of you have been hiding this from me?" Shadow asked, looking down at the floor before he turned to each of them, his expression masked, although some anger was seeping into his voice like venom into a wound, "Sonic, Amy. You know how desperately I wanted to know about my past, and yet you've harboured this secret for almost _five _years? And Rouge, you're the only one I ever relied on to tell me the absolute truth, and here I found out that the only reason I ever trusted you was because of a lie?" The black-furred hedgehog shook his head and stormed out of the garage as well. Tails had a feeling he would be getting _insanely_ drunk and wake up in someone else's bed tomorrow with a hangover.

He _still_ didn't understand what happened, except for the last part. He decided that now Shadow was gone, it would be safe to head upstairs, that's where he was wrong.

"See what you did?" Amy snarled at the bat.

"What do you mean? He's angry at _you_ too!"

"Gods, you haven't changed! You're still the dirty slut you were four years ago!"

"Amy!" Tails interjected, but when he saw that even Sonic wasn't interfering he was glad that his outburst went unheard. Something… something didn't feel right.

"And you're never going to grow up, you _selfish_, little bitch," Rouge scowled, weaker than before as if she had been wounded. Amy growled at her, but decided not to retort and stomped up the stairs to the garage, Sonic falling in behind her.

Rouge stood there for the longest time, her arms crossed over her chest. Tails didn't even realise she was crying until her shoulders started shaking. Caleb slipped off the bench and went over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. As soon as he did she enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug, murmuring something into his ear. He hushed her and stroked her back soothingly.

"I've lost him Callie," she sobbed, "_again._"

"C'mon, let's take you home," he murmured. On the way out the door his wallet chain got snagged on a tool hanging off Shadow's bench. When his wallet spilled across the floor, ten-thousand ring credits spilled out.

"Shit. I've really got to get a new one of these," he said as he hastily picked them up and escorted Rouge out of Black Arms.

A fleeting thought passed through Tails' mind, but he disregarded it and instead moved up the stairs, wondering how he was going to deal with all this extra tension.

* * *

><p><em>Return The Favour <em>by All Time Low

* * *

><p>Deciding the escape the problematic situations that follow living in a house full of people that once loved each other, but now want to rip out each other's eyeballs, he accompanied Cream who was heading to the 'Carnivale' section of Soleanna (the one that actually <em>was<em> filled to the brim with amusement parks). It was right next to City Escape, Soleanna's answer to Hollywood. People liked to come here when life seemed too tough, but even this happy place was fraught with danger. You could never be free of mutant haters after all.

They had a special track here called 'Sega Carnival' which was a good beginning course for most Extreme Gear beginners. He was taking Cream there now so that she might show him her awesome new skills before he put in the new air tank for her board. They were walking through the safest sections of Castle Town on their way there, and, to Tails' dismay, it was becoming increasingly awkward.

Why? You might ask. It was because Tails and Cream, despite being friends for a long time, actually hadn't spoken to each other fluently since they were around seven years old. They'd only met each other with brief intervals and there was always someone else around them, so when they were alone, they ran out of stuff to talk about.

_What __**does**__ Cream like to talk about anyway?_

It was a sad fact, but Tails had drifted apart from Cream as they grew up. He'd become increasingly more obsessed with his technology, and she'd… absorbed herself in whatever she absorbs herself in. Tails didn't even know anymore, he'd felt so busy.

"So, how have things been going at the bakery?" he asked her receiving a noncommittal shrug in retaliation.

"Mom's income has increased so we hired a new baker. Her name's Ella, she's really nice."

"That's cool, I was thinking about dropping by today to pick up some cookies-"

"You should! We've got all kind of different ones now."

"Alright." He scrounged around for another topic of conversation. Alright, so he'd exhausted speaking about Extreme Gear with her already, and he already knew that she didn't like speaking about science. She said it bored her. Tails didn't see how figuring out the wonders of the universe could be boring in any sense, but, to each his/her own, he guessed.

"So, have you watched the news lately?"

"I don't like watching the news, they're nothing positive in the media lately," she replied.

_Well, of course, but remaining blissfully oblivious isn't doing anyone any favours either._

Alright then, that meant that current affairs and politics were out of the question, which also meant he wasn't going to be able to speak about the Eggman conspiracies. He was _dying_ to speak to _someone_ about them, but the only person that wasn't in a 'mood' was Knuckles, and he was never around any more… actually… Knuckles was in a bad mood as well, every since his fight with Sonic… that left… Marine. But he hadn't seen the raccoon in days. The last time he had, she was going somewhere with Caleb.

"Have you been listening to any good music lately?"

"I've become a really big fan of One Direction lately."

Tails had to stop himself from outwardly cringing, "And films?"

"The Hunger Games was good."

"Oh cool," he replied, "what did you think of it compared to the book?"

"I didn't read the book."

This wasn't going anywhere.

He wasn't even going to _try_ video games. How did they every become friends when the both of them were so different?

"I know what you really want to talk about…" she replied, looking ghostly as they passed he carnival stalls. The bright colours, rides and alluring smells did nothing to make him feel better, at all. "Wave, right?"

He flushed uncomfortably, noticing Cream's large brown eyes narrow, he'd been found out. "It's okay. I know you guys never really got along."

"It's fine," she insisted, with a smile so bright and cheery she had to be faking. It seemed like she was trying to _accept_ something.

"It's not fair on you."

"I know," she replied sadly, but the smile never left her face, "but life is hardly fair, isn't it? Tell me what's bothering you."

"I said I loved her."

The statement was so abrupt and quick. Tails had no idea how it had slipped so quickly. It was just like when he had confessed just a few days ago. It had forced itself into the situation with no real announcement. It had no _right_ to screw up his life like it had. He couldn't believe three stupid words could make him so miserable.

Cream started cracking up, like really, laughing hard out, but Tails was being serious, waiting for her to regain her composure, "Oh man. That was funny. Now, tell me what really happened?"

Tails stared at her with a completely serious and slightly annoyed expression. Her giggles died down.

"For the love of chao, you're not kidding, are you? Tails, did you even _think_ when you said that?"

"No!" he exclaimed, "It just kinda… slipped out…"

"'Slipped out' like?" she wanted to know more information, obviously, but Tails wasn't sure if he was willing to give it, considering Cream was one of the reasons he was in this situation in the first place.

"Slipped out like… I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. We were having an argument and it just… you know… slipped out. Like one of those things you don't mean to say when you're in an argument," he explained, shrugging his shoulders and waiting for her reply. It was just them now; he was completely ignoring his surroundings.

When he turned to her, he didn't see anger, just a little bit of sadness and compassion, "But… did you mean it?"

"I don't know…" he replied, fisting a hand in his fur. "I mean, yeah, sure, I _like_ Wave…" Cream gave him an unimpressed stare, "Alright, maybe a little more than 'like', but to admit anything more than that… it's silly. A stupid mistake…. _I'm_ silly. _I _made a stupid mistake." He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Well, there isn't anything I can say in this situation that you don't already know."

"You mean, like how to fix this?"

"Yeah. Listen, if she's anything worth fighting for, she's going to want you too. Okay? There's no use getting hung up on a boy that doesn't love you back," she replied, perking Tails up until he looked at her strangely.

"Boy?"

"I meant GIRL! I totally meant girl!"

* * *

><p><strong>domi|notes<strong>

**(i) **See Chapter 10: Shed Not The Innocent, under the section _Thank you for the Venom _by My Chemical Romance.

**(ii)** See Chapter 2: Deception in Progress, under the section _Fever _by Adam Lambert.

**(iii) **See Chapter 9: Try To Fade Away, under the section _Cooler Than Me _by Mike Posner.

**(iv)** See Chapter 6: I Don't Wanna Feel Your Pain, under the section _Don't Trust Me _by 3OH!3.

**(v) **Conversation from Chapter 6: I Don't Wanna Feel Your Pain, under the section _Ignorance _by Paramore.

**(vi)** Eagle Vision! (from AC)

**(vii)** See Chapter 11: I Don't Wanna Feel Your Pain, under the section _Hero _by Skillet.

**(viii) **See Chapter 27: Two Nocturnal Knights Part II, under the section **Warning: Quarantine Activated! Lockdown initiated!**

**(ix) **Haha, what an understatement.

Review!~

**ღ**


	50. Shake Like Leaves

**domi|note**

I'm shoving in some ground info that's going to be _very _important later. Another Caleb-centric chapter (meaning shonen-ai). And enhancing a little _theme_ work. Here's a small little break from all the drama going on.

Thanks to **The Loner in the Shadows**, **DontCrossTheFox**, **Eclipse Tha Chill Wolf**, **HalfWright**, **LordCooler**, **Exploder**, **Stonefaced610**, **Ficfan412**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**,** SmallSpek**,** Unwatered **and** DaddlerTheDalek** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Ficfan412- **Oh yes, I know. No, I don't believe it. SEGA isn't that desperate. I hope.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em><em>And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. ~Roald Dahl<em>  
><em>…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Forty-Nine  
>.<em>  
>"Blood red lips, they shake like leaves. You're flesh and blood, but what's underneath? Don't turn out the lights, kiss yourself goodnight 'cause there's a killer, and he's coming after you."<br>…_  
><em>Strut<em> by Adam Lambert_

* * *

><p>"Why am I agreeing to this again?"<p>

"Because you're secretly a nice person under all of that cynicism and assholish-ness?"

"You think too much of me, good sir."

"Perish the thought, my good man."

"That was weird."

"Yes it was."

Tails happened to be tagging along with Caleb on his job today, for no other reason than he needed to do improve his free running and Silver was missing while two thirds of the Babylon Rogues were unwilling to even _speak_ to him. Besides, he thought he could reward himself for convincing Caleb to ride an Extreme Gear again. They'd spent twenty minutes arguing about it before the fox decided fighting with the kit was a lot more time consuming than giving in.

Now they were at Crisis City at Rapidi Solis' HQ carting around Caleb's packages. He'd deliberately signed on for packages that weren't marked fragile just in case he had some horrific accident. In return for helping him with his job, Caleb was going to give him some tips when he had the free time. Now, he was having difficulty trying to process the busy centre of Crisis City, wondering how anyone could get anything done with the amount of shouting and rushing, and he swore he saw a blue streak rush forward at least three times since he entered the place.

It worked a lot more differently than he thought a courier service would. The packages were piled into one corner and you could pick up any amount you wanted, needing to get a slip signed to make sure the package had been delivered. Caleb normally carted around three small packages inside a backpack, or rented a motorcycle for the more troublesome packages. Now that he had Extreme Gear and a restriction cable, he could carry twice as much as he normally did, given he didn't have an accident before he returned.

Tails offered to carry three more in his own backpack, Cyrus giving him an odd look when they got ready to go, "What are you doing?"

"Aren't you aware?" Caleb smirked, "It's 'Bring a brat to work day'."

"Caleb," Cyrus scolded.

"Don't worry, just because I just got my Extreme Gear license renewed, doesn't mean I'm going to immediately go carting into a building."

"Make sure he's paid for his services," the lion replied.

"You're dirty," Caleb purred, eyes lowering.

Cyrus flushed, embarrassed and waved him off, "Shoo! You've got work to do."

Once they were on the roads and avoiding the Egg Pawns on their patrols Tails snapped his fingers, "_That's_ why you're Rapidi Solis' golden boy! Because you flirt with Cyrus."

"I flirt with Cyrus because he's easily flustered and it makes him uncomfortable," he explained, pulling off his RS cap and slapping it on Tails' head so the hat allowed most of his bangs to slip through the gap.

"You're a jerk, you know that?"

"My, my Tails. For a genius, you're a little socially inept, aren't you?"

"Uh… you're a slut!"

"You hurt me with your cruel, cruel words," the fox replied with a laugh.

* * *

><p><em>Anthem of Our Dying Day<em> by Story of the Year

* * *

><p>Their conversation was easy banter until they happened upon their fourth delivery. They parked the Extreme Gear in the parking lot and Tails was currently trying to stop Caleb from shaking their next delivery customer's package. "It sounds like… guitar strings, picks, and possibly… I think I can hear a capo."<p>

"Stop it! That's for the customer," Tails replied, snatching it and switching his vision to negative and gasping when he realised Caleb got it right. "How did you know?"

"Because the address is Ash Mongoose's," he answered, grinning and tapping the sticker.

"Oh, it is," Tails admitted.

"You know Ash?"

"Not well," the yellow fox shrugged. "I know his girlfriend, Mina."

"What a weird coincidence," he muttered, pressing the doorbell.

When the beautiful, purple-haired songoose answered her smile lit up the entire hallway, "Tails! And you're Ash's friend, right? Come in."

"Mina, who was at the door?"

"Oh man, sorry, what's your name again?" she asked, pointing in Caleb's direction.

"Franklin Goobledollar."

She gave him a weird look before smiling and yelling, "Ash, a 'Franklin Goobledollar' is here to see you!"

"Caleb!" Ash sped out of another room, pointing at the taller fox accusingly, "You promised you would _never_ bring that up again!"

"You know I love to break my promises," he smiled, giving the mongoose a quick one-armed hug and pointing to Tails who was holding the package.

"Hey, thanks man. All of our picks have gone missing and I've shredded through my strings," Ash explained, signing for the package before hunting around for a knife. "Do you know how hard it is to find a non-racist music store around here? Plus, none of them have soul either."

"How do you expect soul from someone that hasn't suffered any hardships?"

"What are you doing here?" Mina asked, sweeping Tails into her arms and swinging him around.

"I'm-Mina! I'm suffocating!" she let him down so he could breath properly, pointing to his companion, "I'm helping him deliver some packages."

"You know each other?"

"He's another one of my room-mates," Tails explained. "Though I have to admit, it was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made."

"Love you too, Doll Face."

"Hey, I can understand how hard it is to live with an empath in your dorm," Ash sympathised as he dragged Caleb over to some manuscripts. "Especially _this_ empath."

"You were in the same dorm?"

"Oh yeah," the black-haired mongoose replied, "it was absolute Hell. I couldn't walk _in_ without everyone doing or speaking about something weird. You've never had crazy room-mates until you've seen them blowing up condoms and hanging them from the tree outside. Or, do you remember the time-"

"-that we set everyone's alarm clock to three o'clock in the morning?"

"Oh, that and the time we painted-"

"-the principle's car pink?"

"No, that other time when-"

"-we covered it with glue and stuck female sanitary items all over it?"

"_That's_ the one!" He laughed, "I immediately associate the worse memories with this guy. I mean, have you ever figured out the logistics of lesbian gummi worm sex?"

"C'mon, that was only like…" Caleb tapped his lips.

"That was a running joke for _three_ months! Even Shadow mentioned it once or twice."

"Really?" Tails interrupted. He was interested because he hadn't heard of Shadow's life before he lost his memory.

"Yeah!" Ash replied, "Come over here, Maestro. I need you to look over this, our pianist totally bailed on us when Mina said she was going to stay to help the Freedom Fighters. Do you still play piano?"

"No," he answered, "but I can look it over."

"You played the piano?" Tails asked curiously.

"Spoilt rich kid, remember?"

"Plus, did you know we were planning on making a band back at the Academy? Good times."

"That was a weird fantasy. We didn't even have a garage," Caleb dismissed the idea with a shake of his head, his eyes going misty.

"What? No it wasn't, not with you as pianist and Arly a-" he stopped mid sentence, returning to his manuscripts. "Yeah, you're right."

"So," the fox turned to Mina as the two caught up, geeking out over a keyboard and a messy pile of manuscripts written in the corner, "you're staying to help the Freedom Fighters?"

"Of course! The Freedom Fighters are my second family. Besides, I'm a mutant too, and this is totally unfair. Plus, Ash is helping out GUN to make himself useful. We've been writing a new song, Tails, and we're hoping it will convince people to join our movement."

"You don't really need a pianist if the vocal melody for this song is _that_ over powering. The best you can do is add some synthesisers in the background for the vocal slides in verses."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, you don't even need guitar accompaniment; you can just let them play chords in the background. Mina's voice can do the rest, but an accompanying male artist would be good as well."

"That's be awesome!" the songoose wrapped her arms around Ash's neck from behind, "You can sing too, Ash."

"What? No way."

"Have you got a name yet?" Caleb replied, making a few adjustments to the manuscripts with a pencil between his teeth.

"We're on the fence between, 'Walking on Air', 'For Your Entertainment' and 'Welcome to the New War'."

The brown-furred fox cringed, blue eyes looking towards the manuscript again… "None of them… _suit_ this song."

"Oh well," the female shrugged, "we're just going to keep trying. Thanks for the help guys."

"See ya," they both replied as they walked out the door.

* * *

><p><em>Second Go <em>by Lights

* * *

><p>"Um… I don't want to deliver the next package, <em>Hell<em> Tails, why did you even pick this one up?"

"It was random! Where is it to anyway?"

The box was heavy, like, really heavy. It was like an Extreme Gear that hadn't been gravitationally balanced yet. And those hurt like a b-word. Just kidding, Tails wasn't afraid to say bitch. He thought it about Amy all the time, but not as of late. The word was more associated with someone like Fiona, or Caleb, but mostly Shadow.

"This is the secret address for GUN headquarters."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said. "Well, we're already here, might as well deliver it."

They knocked on the door, hearing the sound of a camera swivelling in the distance. There was a brief pause before the door to the faction building opened and they were both pulled inside.

"Isn't it nice to see my sexy little vixen visit me?" he heard a stranger purr.

"Get _off_ me you motherfucking _dick_! I'm _not_ a girl!" My, that was harsh language, even by Caleb's standards. "Don't put your hand th- If I could get a lawyer I would _so_ sue you for sexual harassment!"

Tails recovered from being pulled in so abruptly, head dizzy from the flashing lights, and cleared his head with a shake only to focus his attention on Caleb using his claws to slash at a stranger's arm.

"_Fuck!_ Dammit, I forgot about those."

The man before him was a white wolf, rapidly gaining attention from some other colleagues walking around the building. It was grey on the inside, a contrast to the old wear-and-tear vision outside. The entrance was still relatively private though, because most of the doors from the foyer were closed, and those that were open didn't have a good view of the door. Rouge poked her head out of one of the doors and started walking over to them. She seemed incredibly composed, as if the events from yesterday hadn't happened. Tails wondered where Shadow was.

"Whatcha doing here, cutie?" she smiled, running her hand through Tails' bangs. He'd grown used to the affectionate gesture from the older woman. She seemed surprisingly sister-like for someone so brazenly alluring.

"Watching Caleb get molested apparently," he replied, watching as the white wolf tried to wrap his arm around the brown-furred fox's waist. Normal people would have missed it, but Tails could note, with his advanced observation skills, that Caleb was blushing.

"Oh, that's Mytho. He's had a crush on him since forever," she explained. "He's also supposed to be Downunda's Commander, but at the moment he's acting like a horny teenager."

"I hear it's mating season for them."

"I could have guessed," she replied, dead pan.

"Rouge! _Help me!_"

The bat looked down and started inspecting her nails, "He used to tease Caleb a lot in school, but in a different way to the way Arly used to treat Callie. Now they're kind of… on and off dating? Is that right?" she turned to the boys for confirmation.

"_NOT TRUE! _Who did you hear that from?" he asked, as the empath finally freed himself from the white wolf's grip.

"Ash," she smirked.

"I'm going to murder him!" he announced as Mytho snuck up behind him again, "Eww. What did you have for lunch?"

"Cold pizza?" the Commander answered.

"Gross. Do you think about the amount of germs you can get from that? Don't you think about the poor bacteria that are subjected to your mastication?"

"I don't know, I haven't had any complaints from anyone _else_ that's been in my mouth," Mytho replied, waggling his eyebrows. Caleb flushed immediately, looking like he'd been electrocuted before jabbing him in the ribs with one of his claws.

"_Seriously?_ Mytho, there's a minor here, and he's like-" he turned to Tails, "-you're fourteen, aren't cha?"

"Yep," replied the ultimately-mortified Tails.

"Stop. Scarring. People." He accentuated those words with a rough shove, but Mytho didn't seem to get the point.

"C'mon, Callie… Give me another chance," he whined, but Caleb just rolled his eyes. He snatched the packet from Tails and shoved it into Mytho's arms. The brown-furred fox paused there a second, whispering something into Mytho's ear that Tails unfortunately managed to pick up.

"It wouldn't work," Caleb's voice seemed sad, regretful even, compared to the angry tone he had used before, "We can't even have _sex._"

Mytho made an offended face and before taking the package, placing his hands over the fox's, "Like that matters."

"I don't have time," Caleb whispered before turning around and gesturing for Tails to follow him.

"That's always your excuse isn't it?" Tails looked back as the wolf sighed, "I don't _care_ you know. I'm still going to keep asking."

"Stop _pitying_ me," Caleb snarled, slamming the door behind them.

* * *

><p><em>Airplanes <em>by B.O.B. feat. Hayley Williams

* * *

><p>"This is our last stop, we're staying here from here on out, and I send the receipts through Silver, who's making the second delivery to this place," Caleb explained in monotone, because Tails hadn't been able to get the lively, playful tone out of him since they'd visited GUN HQ. He had a really <em>screwed up<em> relationship with the Commander.

They stopped right in front of a quaint little art store in Castle Town. It was in a plaza, a small little configuration of shops and a huge hotel in a 'u' formation surrounding a large fountain depicting the three gods Iblis, Argus and Enlil. The shops all had different purposes, but it looked like it was one of those 'convenience corners' with one grocery store, a TAB, a video rental shop, an electronic shop, a bank and a doctor. The art store was next to a beautifully decorated little courtyard with notes posted all over the bricked surface surrounding a small little cherub fountain embedded into the wall. The courtyard was shaded by three large trees, one of them was an ever green, one was a Jacaranda, and the other was a cherry blossom tree. It was an odd contrast, but Tails thought it looked amazing. The small courtyard provided shade for numerous people, painters, high school students, those women posting stickers on the wall and… was that?

Leilani and Lottie got up from one of the benches, it was slightly comical seeing them holding hands, considering Leilani was much taller than the tiny little fox, who was skipping and holding one of the sticky notes. The GUN agent wasn't dressed in her uniform, which surprised Tails. She was wearing a flowy crème-coloured dress with a cropped brown jacket and thigh high boots. He was surprised; having never seen Cesario looked so… _feminine _before.

"Callie!" she ran into Caleb's open arms and he swung her around before propping her up on one arm. She waved at Tails and the fox mustered up a sarcastic smile, to which the infant replied with a childish raspberry.

"Well," Leilani's smooth tone interrupted their little dispute, "baby-sitting duty is officially over…" she stopped to examine Caleb for a second before she narrowed her eyes, a flash of red flashing through the brown. "Is Mytho bothering you again?"

"How do you _do _that?" Tails asked incredulously.

"You mean 'how did I know'?" the woman asked, pointing to Caleb's hand, "Your claws are still out, Sweetie."

"Snap," Caleb retracted them before giving Leilani a salute. "Thanks, and yes."

"You know, I _can_ hit him for you if you'd like. He doesn't hit girls unless we're sparring."

"Yes, that would be nice. Thank you," he replied, dipping his head to inspect Leilani's outfit. "It's pretty. Who are you wearing?"

"C Blanc," she replied. Oh, that sounded like some kind of fashion designer. He thought he'd heard Amy mentioning him once or twice.

"Alright, now _why_ are you wearing it?" he asked suspiciously. "I almost didn't recognise you because you're wearing a dress. When was the last time apart from work I saw you out of sweatpants and a hoodie? Now you're actually putting your GUN money to good use?"

"What are you implying?" she narrowed her eyes.

"Have you met a man?" he suggested cheekily.

"No," she answered immediately, but even 'socially inept' Tails could tell she was lying.

"Wow, those heels look awfully hard to walk in."

A look of worry flashed through Leilani's eyes and she looked down at her boots, "Do they look stupid? I bet this entire outfit looks ridiculous," she moped. Tails didn't know what she was speaking about. She looked gorgeous. It kind of annoyed him when pretty girls said they were ugly. They seemed kind of like attention seekers to him.

"You look pretty, Lani," Lottie affirmed, grinning widely.

"Gorgeous," Caleb agreed. "Now, go off to woo your mystery lover. I've got work to do."

"You're a jerk."

"You're too kind," he replied.

On their way to the art store Tails asked, "Cesario isn't blind is she? She looked fine." More than fine, actually.

"She has self-esteem issues," Caleb explained. "It's residual from her Black Arms treatment. Before she was subjected to enhancement, taken into the Black Arms and experimented on, she was rather… well… I will admit she wasn't that pretty. She was actually rather… hideous. The only reason she wasn't bullied at Downunda, while I was there, is because she had made up for her time she could have been spending hanging out with friends by training. That's why she's so good now."

"Weren't you her friend?"

"Yes, but I only entered into GUN the year that she graduated. That was beside the point. Bullies had lowered her self esteem to the point where she believed she wasn't worthy of friendship. So it was hard to coax her out of her shell, according to Rouge, Shadow and Arly."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"One of the effects the Black Arms still has on her; even though she's overwhelmingly beautiful _now,_ all that she sees whenever she looks in a mirror is what she was before she was enhanced. I've seen it, when I drink aloe vera, I can see the world through her eyes, and she still looks like a chubby, acne covered old woman. It's not good for the self esteem."

"Is that why she is the way she is?"

"Yes, she still thinks she's ugly on the inside, as well as the outside. I mean, I've painted her, numerous times, and taken her picture, so that she can see what she looks like to everyone else, but she just can't believe it."

"… I don't think Leilani's ugly on the inside," Tails murmured.

"Yes, me either. It's a shame she can't see that."

* * *

><p><em>Innocence<em> by Avril Lavigne

* * *

><p>"Hi Erma," Caleb greeted as they went into the art store. Tails was amazed by the supplies around them; he'd never been in a place specifically dedicated to beauty really. Plus, Shadow was always changing the places he bought his gear; it would have been a good idea to switch to this place from now on. It was just like a warehouse, except this time he couldn't name everything that he could see.<p>

The woman behind the counter was a young ermine with brown fur and red hair. She looked a little like Sally to Tails, with her pink vest and blue eyes. She only looked a little older, and wore make up as opposed to straight-forward Sally.

"Cal, you're late."

"Yeah, by like, five minutes," he grinned, plopping Lottie onto the desk and tugging a lanyard on so that people could tell he was part of the staff. Tails placed the package on the counter and the ermine regarded him with interest.

"Please don't tell me you have a long lost sibling," she asked him, jerking her hand in Tails' direction.

"What? No. Don't you recognise him?"

"Solaris, you're Fox-trot!"

Tails made a little bow, smiling at her, "Tails."

"Erma, Tails. Tails, Erma. She's my boss," the fox explained, turning to the female. "Speaking of which, what am I doing to day?"

"Those packages you delivered have the paint for the base coat outside, if you're friend is willing to help, there are some brushes outside."

"Alright. When's Sealia coming in?" he asked, retrieving two sets of overalls from behind the counter.

"Around four o'clock. Now get to it," she ordered, forcing the both of them out of the store.

"Is she always so straight forward?" Tails complained, rubbing his back.

"Pretty much. She's not so bad, used to be really frigid," Caleb explained before chuckling quietly to himself.

"What's so funny?"

"That was a bad joke, considering she's part of the artic branch of the Freedom Fighters."

"Really?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Caleb dipped his brush into the white paint and started moving over the recently hosed brick wall, Tails followed his example. "This store is one of the safe houses for the resistance movement. Has been for over seven years."

"Really?" Tails blue eyed widened, "Who was the founder?"

Caleb brought his hand down from the last stroke, looking at the brick and smiling affectionately. He didn't answer, but Lottie, who had been observing their conversation quietly answered for him.

"Mommy."

Tails whipped his head around, just registering the girl's presence. Then he looked at Caleb for confirmation, "Really?"

He nodded, eyes on the wall as he continued to paint, "Yep. Mom."

He once thought, very soon after he had met Caleb that he was so aloof and uncaring about the world around him, because of his empathic abilities, he learned to shut the world around him out so that he might not get hurt, but _now_, now Tails realised why he had to run away from his problems. He understood why Caleb pushed Arly and his father to the back of his mind, because like Tails, he had a lot to loose.

He had family, he had friends, he had his mother's memory, even something that _might_ have been the start of a relationship. One false move in the dangerous game he was playing and everything could be taken away from him.

He was playing it careful, running away to fight another day.

And for that, Tails respected him.

"You have a great life," Tails told him.

The empath smiled, he gave him a _real_ smile and laughed helplessly, "Life's too short to be unhappy."

But there was one thing that kept on bothering him…

"Caleb, what did you mean when you said you were running out of time?"

The fox's shoulders went rigid as if he had been shocked with electricity before he shook his head, "Nothing."

Tails rolled his eyes. Caleb would be angry at him if the kit told him exactly how see-through he was being.

_Right,_ he thought sarcastically, _nothing at all. _


	51. It All Comes Crashing Down

**domi|note**

All of you wonderful people have **Exploder** to thank for this update. Thanks for all the support guys. I love you all so much!~

Everything is hectic right now, so updates will be coming in slower than before.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>Friendship: a building contract you sign with laughter and break with tears. ~Danielle N. Redfield<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty One  
>.<em>  
>"Stand in the rain. Stand your ground. Stand up when it's all crashing down."<br>…_  
>Granite <em>by Pendulum

* * *

><p>The screaming resonated in his ears before he could grasp the situation with both paws, but it slipped from his fingertips before he could clear his head of previous thoughts, and separate the blurred words, smashed together with decibels far too high. One voice was Sonic, the other- Knuckles, he believed. And there was slamming, and screaming, and smashing, but none helped him to decipher the situation. Not until he could see what was happening for himself, so Tails ran, and Silver and Caleb followed close behind, curious as to what was happening at Black Arms.<p>

The brown fox stepped forward first, a stupid mistake that would have cost him an injury if he didn't barrel roll forwards fast enough, shards of glittering glass skimming across the wall before it exploded across the floor as if someone had thrown a caltrop bomb. Silver had managed to react just in time to save himself and Tails, stopping any of the shards that had blasted in their direction. Using his telepathy, he swept the shards he could see into a neat little pile before turning his attention towards where the explosion had come from.

_What the Hell are they doing? _Tails thought, even though that wasn't the right question to ask. He realised a moment later he should have been asking, _What are they arguing about? _But at this rate, it could have been anything. Lately arguments had sprung up out of the stupidest subjects, so Knuckles and Sonic could have been speaking about cereal and that somehow erupted into an argument.

"Ah…" his eyes turned to Caleb, who was looking around his workshop and favouring one of his limbs. They widened when they noticed the blood that was dripping from down his forearm.

"Solaris, what happened?" Tails asked, ducking over to the black-haired fox and dragging out a first aid kit that was stuffed under his workbench.

"Ah, yes. That's where it is," the older fox replied, quickly flicking it open and rummaging around the contents until he found a pair of tweezers. "Sorry. I rolled over the broken glass to escape the blow."

Tails was about to ask him what he was doing when he winced and ripped out a large glass shard from his arm. The little fox watched with wide eyes before growling at a blur of blue and red, seconds short of hitting each other, perched precariously at the bottom of the stairs.

"Knuckles, how could you keep something like this to yourself? Why didn't you tell me what was happening? I bet you told Su, maybe everyone else at the Ruins!" Sonic snarled at the red echidna, green eyes blazing. His fists were clenched, and if he moved his stance a little, he would have been ready to jump into a fight. He certainly sounded like he wanted one.

"Guys!" Tails skidded to a stop between them just as Knuckles raised his hand in a threatening gesture. "What's wrong?"

"Locke's dead."

Tails' heart sunk while his face froze over into a shocked expression, melting into a frown as he turned to Knuckles, "Knuckles, I am so sorry…"

The echidna's expression saddened for a moment, and the corner of his lips twitched up as if he was attempting to smile. His shoulder mimicked the action in a half-hearted shrug before he turned a glare on Tails' best friend. "See? Why can't you be more like Tails? He finds out, he gives his condolences, like normal friends! They don't _blame_ me for my father's death!"

"_Sonic!"_ Tails hissed, horrified that Sonic would do something like that.

"It's what you're implying, you selfish asshole! How am I supposed to respond to 'Why didn't you tell me? I could have done something,' as if I didn't try everything that I could?"

"Sonic, why would you say something like that?" Tails asked sadly.

The blue hedgehog's eyes softened, "Locke was like a father to me too."

"Well, whenever I'd try to tell you what was happening, you pushed me away in favour of the Freedom Fighters. You weren't acting like much of a son."

Knuckle's chuckled humourlessly, shrugging, "You know what they say: like father…"

"Don't you _dare_ compare me to him," Sonic snarled, outraged.

"Whatever. I'm going to the Ruins."

"Good riddance!" Sonic slumped against the wall miserably as Knuckle's slammed the smaller garage door. He placed a gloved hand over his eyes and his shoulders shook a moment as he lost composure. He felt like comforting his friend, but a sudden sense of embarrassment stopped him. Weird… he normally didn't feel this self-conscious about hugging his brother. So he ended up simply patting Sonic's shoulder, and it seemed that managed to do the trick. Not entirely, because he knew losing a father, even one that was not blood related, was tough. Sonic released a breath before nodding at him and trumping upstairs to his room.

Tails felt horrible, because he felt helpless. At the moment there was nothing he could do to fix anything, because he didn't know enough information. He could hardly intervene with the Shadow and Rouge epidemic, meaning that the business between Sonic, Amy and the bat would remain bitter enemies for now at least. And now Sonic was picking fights with Knuckles, who was anything but emotionally stable right now. Taking sides with any of his friends would immediately earn him more enemies. Blaze and Silver's argument went further than a lover's tiff this time, with real trust issues being broken because of issues revolving around their pasts, and Caleb had remained annoyingly distant, annoyingly neutral about the entire affair, because he was so focused on avoiding ladies of the siren-like nature. He wasn't even going to get _started_ on the shit that was happening between himself and the Babylon Rogues- or, more accurately, him and _Wave. _

Sometimes, Tails really did feel like bashing his head against a wall.

He changed his flannel and jeans, seeing as those were the only things that had gotten dirty during his deliveries, and went downstairs with a bottle of antiseptic in his hands. Silver was still downstairs levitating the glass into the bin, and helping Caleb pluck out the glass that he couldn't see. He winced when he saw the antiseptic, but muttered a brief thanks to Tails anyway, stripping off his shirt and using the tweezers to rip out another huge shard, "Dammit. What did Knuckles throw anyway?"

"One of Amy's glass vases," Silver replied, using telekinesis to gently worm out another glass piece. "It was an ugly thing, no one will miss it."

"Me most of all," the older fox replied. Tails winced with him this time. Even though the lights of the garage were dim, he could now see the full extent of the damage; Caleb had rolled on one shoulder, meaning his left arm, his shoulder blade, and his ribs had been attacked with the falling debris. The younger fox noticed something odd, a very obvious gap in Caleb's chest fur when he tried to remove a shard that had embedded itself into his pectoral. He gasped when he realised it a large scar, around twelve centimetres long, and one centimetre thick, right over his heart.

"How did you get that?" he asked, even though he knew he was being incredibly nosey. He was expecting an abrupt dismissal, but Caleb simply looked down at it and shrugged.

"I can't remember."

"A scar that big?" Silver asked in disbelief, "You have to remember something."

"Nope," he shrugged. He looked uncomfortable, not because he was self-conscious about his body, but because of the huge scar they hadn't seen before, so he quickly brushed out the last of the shards and pulled his shirt back on, even though he knew he would have to change once he got back to his room. "Not a thing."

"That's odd."

"Well, considering how big it is, sometimes I'm glad I can't remember where I got it," he replied absently, and Tails knew he was speaking about the marks on Tails' face, a sadistic spot that he couldn't hide of course, and the yellow fox immediately understood what he meant.

"Yeah, you're right."

* * *

><p><em>Give Me Love <em>by Ed Sheeran

* * *

><p>After Silver helped the fox get up the stairs, Tails closed up shop and continued completing the last of his Gear jobs, which consisted of simple things like fixing broken flux capacitors, broken screens and adjusting tank capacity-Gear ratio sizes to suit a specific need. Even though this was basic stuff –some of the tasks he could do one-handed- he still threw himself into the work and made sure everything was perfect, because he just didn't want to think about anything else right now. Unfortunately, Fate had other sadistic plans in mind, as she normally did.<p>

Upon finishing one of the final Gears of the night, he promptly tripped and fell face-first onto the floor, snarling at whatever god-forsaken instrument had decided to incur his wrath tonight. Tails groaned as he hoisted himself into a sitting position and rubbed his sore head, fingers running through his bangs as his tired eyes searched around for whatever he had tripped on. Normally, he did a better job of tidying up after himself, in comparison to Shadow, but it wasn't one of Shadow's tools that his sneaker had slipped on, it was Wave's.

Out of the hundreds of tools he had in the garage, how could he tell it was Wave's, you might ask? Well, Wave didn't have many tools of her own, considering they were all shot down in the zeppelin, so whatever she had bought with her own money she personalised. While Shadow and Tails simply kept to writing an 'T' on their instruments, or in shadow's case, splashing the handles with bright red paint, she creatively wove pipe-cleaners or attached silk ribbons to the handles, or simply adorn them with brightly coloured stickers. They looked ridiculous of course, but Shadow and Tails never got their tools confused with hers.

He found it charming, how she had combined something so… mechanical with something gloriously simple. It made him realise his own methods of identification were painfully bland as well- which forced him onto a depressing train of thought. Was that the reason she didn't like him? Of course there was the age gap, but… would she dislike him even if they were the same age? Was it because he was boring? Was she just entertaining his childish whims because he was a kid? Did his theories and opinions –in fact- sound _stupid_ to her? Or did she simply dislike him because he was too weak? Because he thought about these petty things every once in a while, apparently too much for her liking.

"Could I have that back?"

He was startled out of his thoughts by the swallow herself, looking down at him unimpressed as she snatched the screwdriver out of his outstretched hand. Jet and Storm had just made their way up the stairs, and she was staying behind to finish her Gear commissions as well. She went over to the side of her bench that was as far from him as possible, glancing briefly at the blood splatters on the floor before getting to work. Apparently, he hadn't been as discreet as he was hoping he was, because her ice-blue eyes immediately flickered up to his own, glaring at him expectantly.

Tails flushed, mortified and embarrassed that he had acted like such a love-struck fool. He decided that Wave must still be angry with him, if not for saying all of those mean things, maybe for ruining their friendship by shoving something as unexpected and preposterous as love into the equation. Ah, but love was anything but an equation. If it was, then he would have had it down easily; he'd charm ladies as easily as Shadow did. But no- he was an emotionally distressed, clumsy, hormonal teenager that didn't know what-in-the-name-of-Solaris he was doing, and so he suffered, while Fate laughed at his misfortune. Goodie.

They continued to work in silence, Tails being extra careful about keeping his eyes down so he wouldn't be caught gawking like some kind of obsessive stalker. Throughout the evening, something dark and painful was welling up in his chest where his heart had been, and he found concentration on his Gear near impossible while this consuming emotion disintegrated his remaining will. He'd been absently wondering tinkering with an air pipe that had been clogged with… something, his mind lingering between Wave and how pretty she looked when she was angry, to the swelling in his chest when she smiled at him, to how he was supposed to remedy the situation, when he discovered exactly what was blocking the air pipe.

Stupidly, he'd been trying to get the jammer out with one of his own screw drivers, so when he flicked his wrist just so, an eroded piece of sharp metal –whose original purpose, Tails had no idea- ricocheted of the other side of the pipe and slammed into his face before flying Solaris knew where.

"Sunuva-… _ow,_" he groaned, clutching the side of his face the metal had hit, registering heat and dampness and pain. When he pulled his hand away, his fur was stained with blood. Compared to some of his other more vicious accidental injuries, (plus the accompanying _intentional_ injuries from his training regime) this cut was nothing. He was probably just surprised it had happened so suddenly. The blood trickled over one of his eyes, and he was about to remove one of his hands to look for the first aid kit when he heard it slam in front of him and felt a bit of gauze being pressed to his forehead, feminine hands running through his bangs affectionately.

"I can see why you keep the first aid kit so close."

Wave's tone had a slight lilt of amusement in it, but if he wasn't listening for the tone, she would have sounded painstakingly neutral. Tails flinched when Wave brought his hand away from the wound, the corner of her lips twitching up momentarily at his startled expression. His face felt like it was on fire. How could she be so composed when the awkwardness was _tangible?_

Alright, so he was exaggerating a little bit, but _still!_

"I… I can do it myself," he insisted, taking the gauze, ignoring the sparks that ignited across his skin when their finger's touched.

"Here's the piece that went flying. It's eroded steel, probably from inside the fuel tank itself if that's what's blocking the air flow. Your client probably has leaking battery acid from the core from some of the old pre-Grand Prix era," she muttered, placing the steel on his workbench.

"Thanks," he answered, but he didn't sound thankful in the slightest. He watched her eyes flicker to the band aids and then to his wound, reaching for them, but he managed to beat her to it, saving him the trauma of being treated like a little kid that had hit their head on a banister or something stupid due to carelessness. He hit her hand in the process of grabbing the bandages. If they were still friends, she would have either completely ignored it (it was just a small tap, like an ant bite on a lion's hide) or over reacted to the rough treatment. Instead, he saw hurt in her eyes. Not physical pain, but she could see how the contact had scorched Tails' skin, how every movement she initiated caused him to flinch back in horror, disgust, fear.

He looked at her now with a sense of longing, and regret, guilt above all. He knew it was clear in his eyes; how he missed their friendship, when it was simply two mechanics that shared the same interest. It had been fine when they were oblivious to the age gap, to their opposing sexes, to their difference in status, to their freedoms and obligations.

He remembered a time so many afternoons ago when they'd simply discussed the origin of Extreme Gear and ate ice cream together. Why couldn't everything be that easy again?

_Because you had to open your big mouth, didn't you? _

"'M sorry…" he muttered, but he wasn't just apologising for the band aids. He could see it in her eyes, how behind that statement lay a thousand more apologies for an emotion he just couldn't control. "I'm sorry, Wave. I-I'm so, so sorry."

His voice was constricted, causing it to stutter and break. It disgusted him; he didn't want to show weakness in front of her. Unfortunately, this vulnerability was in his nature, and it had shown through because moments later she was hugging him, his head positioned so that his cheek pressed into the crook of her neck. Fight left him, and the will to pull himself away drained from his body.

"Me too," she pressed her cheek to the side of his head, her voice low and soft, "I shouldn't have said those things. Half of the were harsh, and the rest weren't true."

He gulped, the back of his eyes stinging, but he used the rest of his will to force the overbearing heat aside. She stroked the back of his head, her hand getting caught in unruly locks that had started growing out when puberty began.

"I wasn't in my right mind. I-I can't believe I said those things," he admitted, pulling away from her so he could see her eyes. "I… I'm sorry I said _that_… I shouldn't have-I shouldn't-"

"Shh," she urged. Of course, she understood instantly. He saw sadness in her eyes. He _knew_ he should have given up hoping, but he couldn't help but feel there was a sense of… No! False hope was intolerable. And he was right. He would be crushed. He would be torn apart.

His heart would break, and he'd be left alone to gather up the pieces.

"I needed to speak to you about this…"

"Yes?"

_No hope. No hope. __**Don't**__ hope. _

He had been disappointed before. She was no different. Cosmo. Fiona. Wave…

"Tails… don't lie to me, please?"

_What does she mean? What does she want? What if I __**have**__ to lie?_

He made a small sound in the affirmative, but he neither said yes nor nodded his head, he crossed his fingers behind his back.

"Have you imprinted on me?"

* * *

><p><em>Innocence<em> by Avril Lavigne

* * *

><p>Imprinting. The bond between a fox and their mate, once established, never broken. But Tails hadn't thought about this. He'd thought he'd imprinted on Fiona, he though Fiona had imprinted on him. But that had been a disaster, one that he could happily forget. What became of foxes that never found their mates?<p>

They died alone.

But was Wave…?

No, how could he…

He'd never experienced what he had with Wave. With Cosmo and Fiona, he thought it had been love at first sight. He could remember vividly the first meeting he'd ever had with Wave; he'd been furious with her, he thought they would never get along. And look at what'd happened! Now he was considering an imprint.

_But… what if she doesn't like me back?_

Of course she didn't like him back! There he was, raising false hope again.

_If… If I lie to her… if I tell her I haven't imprinted on her… then she might forget this ever happened. She might be my friend again. _

But…

Tails thought long and hard, considering the intensity of these emotions, almost to the point of being embarrassing. The very height of happiness, the lowest point of sadness… he'd never felt this way before.

"Tails?" she ran her fingers through his bangs again, and when his eyes locked onto hers, soft pools of melted diamond, he _knew_, he just _knew_ he had. How horrendous. How wonderful. He'd actually _imprinted_ on his best friend. How cliché.

So, he also knew what he had to do…

"No."

"Really?" she asked, a look of astonishment in her eyes that made him feel uneasy.

How could she not see that he was gritting the fib with the edges of his teeth, or was she being purposefully obtuse? Was she _hoping _for this answer?

_Of course she was. I'll never be good enough for her._

"Yes… I haven't imprinted on you."

"Thank Enlil," she swore in relief, causing his eyes to darken considerably. She bit her lip when he shoved off her rather roughly, and she realised exactly how insulting that sounded. "No, Tails! I didn't mean it like that."

"Well then how _did _you mean it?" he asked, an uncharacteristic edge in his tone that he'd learnt from Shadow, and refined through Caleb.

"It's just… if you did imprint on me… then I would have no choice… but to stay," she grasped at the words as if she was falling from a cliff and every sentence she uttered was a rock that tumbled beneath her weight.

His heart sunk. What did she mean? Tails' eyes widened as he tilted his head inquisitively, the expressions on his face moving from confusion, to shock, to sorrow.

"No…"

"I'm sorry!" she reached forward to embrace him again, so that she might sooth him with her touch. But it would not work this time. He didn't not want to hold her down. But he did not want to see her go.

When she realised that Tails would not come back to her, she sighed and gripped her elbow with the opposite arm, a visible sign of vulnerability, "Tails… I was never… _we_ were never meant to stay here for very long. The Grand Prix is a ruse; Jet, Storm and I are here for the excavation sites."

"The Mines?" _The ones near the Tar Pits?_

"Have you realised that there are _heaps_ around Soleanna? Eggman isn't planning mass renovation, he's _looking_ for something, has been for over three years."

"Does this have something to do with-?"

"The Crimson Night," she nodded, leaning back on the workbench and pausing a moment before continuing on. "Four years ago, Jet's father was here looking for us because we'd run away- wondered if we'd passed because Soleanna used to be one of the top Extreme Gear capitals of the world. He died here, murdered, and he left behind a treasure far more valuable than all the rings in the world; the Key to Babylon Garden."

"And you've come here to find it?" he assumed, receiving a serious nod in return.

"Yes. And we need to, before Eggman or the Battle Bird Armada does."

"Why the Battle Bird Armada?" he questioned, "Aren't you members?"

"_Former_ members. Our Grand Battle Kuku is corrupt. Unlike Eggman, who only knows half of the story, he knows the entire plot involving mutants, both natural and Black Arms descendants. He _also_ doesn't believe in the value of life. To him, there should be no power apart from natural mutants; Babylon mutants. And that all life, including people _without_ mutant powers… should die.

"Quill, Jet's father, didn't agree with this, so as the Keeper of the Key he, along with my grandfather, devised a plot to hide the Key from the Kuku so he wouldn't be able to use the weapons aboard Babylon Garden to kill Black Arms mutants. But then we ran away, and he came after us… Jet's father was murdered, and my grandfather was captured. After we found out what happened, we trained and fought and stole as hard as we could to find ways to get _into _Soleanna and break into Eggman's base, and it's taken us four years."

"Oh my god, your _grandfather_ was captured! So… the one designing Eggman's new gear is…!"

"That's right," she nodded solemnly. "Eggman is forcing my grandfather to design new gears, what for though, I don't know. Blaze's Gear was a prototype he designed, with the famous design of the Battle Bird Armada. It's why we have to leave Tails. I need to get him back, we need to steal Jet's key. And then… then we have to leave."

"I… don't understand…"

"Tails… we're Babylonians… we can just _tell_ Eggman is getting closer to the Key. And when he finds it, we have to be ready to steal it. Once I break my grandfather out of Eggman's base, we have to flee Soleanna, hide the key and then… and then we'll be on the run…"

"No…" Tails shook his head in disbelief. "You… you can stay here," he knew he sounded hysterical now, but he just couldn't bear the thought of seeing her go. "No… You can hide here! We'll find somewhere safer, I promise you-"

"Tails," she shook her head sadly, eyes wavering, "don't make promises you can't keep."

"I can! I-I-I can do _something_. I'll keep you safe… You can't possibly be on the run forever…"

"Tails… Carrying that secret, the one about the location of the Key, is a _death sentence._ I can't… I can't sit by and watch a genocide happen, and I know you feel the same way…"

"But…" he couldn't help it now, the tearing in his chest overwhelmed him, and the tears in his eyes threatened to spill over.

"I've made an oath to my brothers, Jet and Storm, that I would stand by them no matter what; which means hiding with them once the Key has been hidden, which means fighting to keep that secret safe, which means running away with them when the time comes… which means _dying_ with them when we're caught, and have nowhere else to go," she said, grabbing the side of his face and holding him up as the tears fell.

"You can't!" he sobbed, "You just can't."

"Just let me _go,_ Tails."

"I can't!"

"Can't or _won't?_"

She was telling him she was going to die. The Battle Bird Armada would stop at nothing to find something that powerful, but the Babylon Rogues would not give them a chance. He knew they would sooner die than allow the Kuku their secrets and commit atrocities rivalling those of Eggman.

"Storm and I are going on that mission with the Freedom Fighters to infiltrate Eggman's base during the fifth race. If Eggman finds the Key before then, Jet will fall out of the competition early to join us. Immediately after that… we're leaving Soleanna… for good."

He was shaking his head as he stared at her, eyes still wide and cheeks damp with tears, "There has to be another way."

"There isn't."

_Defeating __**Eggman**__ seems impossible. How would anyone __**ever**__ take out the Battle Kuku?_

"I… I thought… maybe it would hurt less, if I told you this now," she admitted shyly, eyes downcast as a long silence stretched out before them.

He laughed humourlessly, knowing he sounded as if he'd been pushed off the deep end, "You mean it would alleviate you of the guilt you'd feel if you'd left without a word?"

"Tails-!" she pleaded, hurt displayed all over her beautiful features.

"It hurts Wave, of course it does. But I can't continue this conversation without it turning petty and stupid. _Why_ did you have to be nice to me? _Why_ did you have to drag it out? _Why_ couldn't you just drop me like that?"

"Tails I couldn't just-"

"Dammit, Wave, _why did you make me __**fall in love**__ with you?_" he screamed, the sound resonating throughout the garage. There was that large silence again, quietly cutting scars into both of their hearts.

It felt like years, _eons_ before she spoke again… "Fine…" she murmured darkly eyes narrowing as she glared at him… "I'm leaving because I want to… because I can't _stand_ to spend another month in this god-forsaken Hell hole with a petty little boy that _ever_ thought he had a chance with Extreme Gear… or with me."

That stung. It really did… but unfortunately, Tails wasn't an idiot.

Still… he'd go along with her plan.

"And I'll be glad to be rid of a selfish bitch that enjoys using people for her own pleasure, who's almost as bad as the people she fights with…"

"That's a lot," she snarled, "coming from a pitiful little brat that actually _thinks_ he has anything to accomplish!"

"What about a girl that hides her insecurities between snark and manipulation? You're going to die alone!"

Her eyes widened, "I hate you!"

"I hate-" the words stuck in his throat, his fist clenched, his heart sunk… "I hate-! I hate…"

"Go on, say it!" she demanded, but when he looked up from his fists, he noticed she was crying, and that was when his heart broke. He'd _never_ seen Wave cry before. She'd always seemed stronger than him, stronger than anything he ever had to face, but to see her… like this, just as screwed up as himself… he just couldn't find it in him to hate her. "SAY IT!"

"I love you…" he sighed, disappointed in himself when she leant back on the workbench and started to cry silently. His tears had stopped, but he just didn't feel like he'd ever be whole again.

"I can't love you, Tails," she sobbed, shaking her head as if she couldn't believe herself.

"Can't or _won't?_" he said darkly before walking out of the garage, and slamming the door. He hesitated a moment, a hand on the door as he thought about running in and apologising, whispering comforting lies that sounded so good maybe he could believe they were true.

She'd been honest with him about her leaving, but he lied about the imprint.

_Would you really have stayed, if I told you the truth?_


	52. Fighting The Storm

**domi|note**

Thanks to **LordCooler**, **Undead009**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Yuke Navy Pilot** and **HalfWright **for reviewing the last chapter.

Can the super-awesome-I'll-love-you-forever-and-ever-I-want-your-babies-mega-fantastic person who used the alias 'Aija' to recommend this fanfiction on TV Tropes come forward so I can give you a cyber-cheese cake? You deserve a thank you for making me cry tears of happiness.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret. ~Mary McCarthy<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Two  
>.<em>  
>"Fighting the storm, into the blue, and when I lose myself I'll think of you."<br>…_  
>Postcards and Polaroids <em>by Sleeping With Sirens

* * *

><p>He woke up at an ungodly hour in the morning, so cold that frost clung to his eyelashes. It never did pay to fall asleep on this rooftop, especially now that he was so cold he couldn't even command his hands to create a paper crane. Eyes opened reluctantly, observing the crumpled pieces of paper around him. The last time he had been on this rooftop…<p>

Tails shook the memory aside, scattering his thoughts as he let fly three more paper cranes to the wind, waiting for the wind to pick them up and carry them to another part of the city, laying his head against the cold edge of the stone barrier preventing him from falling. Languidly, taking a moment to watch the sky as the sun's rays started to lighten the deep navy blue of the horizon, he turned his phone on, raising an eyebrow when twelve new messages appeared. One from Sonic, Shadow, Caleb, two from Marine, three from Silver, and four from Amy.

He'd save them the trouble and simply return home, dragging his feet towards his Extreme Gear, which was tossed lazily at the entrance to the stairwell. He picked it up, fingers sliding along the smooth panelling, peppered with the odd scratch or two. There were some people that thought scratches and cracks meant that an item had lost its value; he used to think this too, up until he saw the horrendous state of Caleb's iPod. It had scratches all over it, and three large cracks in the screen, but it still worked and apparently Arly bought it for his birthday, so he refused to get rid of it, at least until it stopped functioning. He was starting to see the value in sentimentality, from the way that Wave liked to decorate her tools, to the necklace that he kept around his neck which reminded him of his mother.

He gripped it now; underneath his worn cotton t-shirt as he looked down from the top of the sky scraper. More often than not, he'd been able to dive from the top of the building, and land safely on the asphalt below if he rotated his Tails fast enough. He looked at his backside, lifting an arm to see the bandages protruding from his tail bone. Cautiously, he twirled the twin apendages, feeling the normal muscles pull and contract as they usually did. It was like running; the longer he did it, the stronger they became. Once upon a time, the muscles in his tails had been stronger than the rest on his body. Now, they were obviously the weakest.

The fox winced and groaned when the pain lanced through them, making him stop instantly. On the plus side, it didn't hurt as much as the last time he'd tried it. The bad thing was that they weren't _nearly_ fast enough to propel him into the air yet. Hell, they couldn't even bring him higher when he jumped. He snarled at himself angrily, jumping onto the sky scraper's edge and throwing the board down, plummeting to the streets, not even flinching as the gravity drive kicked in, softening his fall and sending him in the right direction. He didn't want to go home; he wanted the world to stop a moment while he regained his bearings. But that wasn't how it worked, so he had to man up and forget about it. Maybe he could adopt a Shadow persona for a little bit, see if hiding his emotions behind a mask was a little easier.

_What ridiculous nonsense am I thinking now?_ He sighed. Even his own brain was against him. Well, it hadn't been very productive as of late, wanting to switch between 'Negative' vision (as he'd so affectionately named it) and his normal eyesight continuously. It made him dizzy. He needed to stop using it until he got a better handle on what his power was, and what he was supposed to use it for.

It was around seven o'clock when he'd passed the regular arch near Lethal Highway, noticing an odd pillar of smoke in the distance. More curious than cautious, he slipped onto his Extreme Gear, hopping off when he saw Caleb at the spiked gates of the cemetery. His posture was rigid, arms crossed over his chest, watching silently as the chaos inside unfolded. They were burning it down, five Egg Giants this time, with bull dozers and a wrecking ball taking the quint little chapel down along with it. Headstones and skeletons were tossed aside like garbage.

But he felt numb inside, incapable of any more rage, any more hurt. He just wanted to curl up in his bed and sleep for eternity.

Beside him, Caleb was rummaging around in his pockets. Well, apparently he could still feel curiosity, "What are you doing?"

Caleb didn't answer him until he'd found a permanent marker in his jacket, ripping the cap off with his teeth and dropping to the ground, scrawling something on the pavement. Alright, so maybe Caleb was starting to show the insane tendencies off his mentor. That was worrying. As long as he didn't start drinking, Tails knew they were in the clear. "Y'know, typical delinquent behaviour."

The fox was skilled with his hands. In minutes, a large outline of the famous 'Black Wings' **(i)**image could be seen, looking as chilling and menacing as it had when Tails had gone to see a fortune teller to see what the fuss was about. The scraggly black body and the black-feathered wings looked sharp; an attribute to Caleb's messy, angular style, but it still looked elegant and skilfully drawn.

It still didn't matter how beautiful the image was, if the Egg Patrol saw what they were doing, Caleb and Tails were going to be shot down instantly.

The brown fox finished the image with big bold letters next to the drawing, using a print that was not his own to write 'DOWN WITH THE EGGMAN EMPIRE' for everyone to see.

Looking over the image proudly, he pocketed the marker and sat back on his knees, looking up to Tails. The smaller fox grinned at him, feeling a mild sense of pride to have Caleb as a friend before shaking his head, "You're going to get us killed."

The brown fox chuckled, stood up and ruffled Tails' hair. He touched both shoulders before his lips with his left hand, a typical Solaris believer's sign to show respect for their religion, including protection from evil spirits during sacrilege of the dead. "I didn't know you were religious."

"I'm agnostic," Caleb muttered, "but I was raised a Solaris believer. I used to believe in Karma. Now I only know Eggman trades requiem for retribution…" he sighed, looking at Tails with a sad smile. "He'll get what's coming to him, but it will never be enough to those whose lives he's ruined."

Tails nodded solemnly before he copied the gesture, touching the tips of his fingers to his lips and saying a silent prayer for the dead.

* * *

><p><em>Whataya Want From Me<em> by Adam Lambert feat. P!nk

* * *

><p>When Tails and Caleb returned, Silver was half asleep at the table, about to dunk his head into a bowl of Cheerios when Tails clomped up the kitchen steps and noticed that the Rogues door was open, meaning that they were probably out already. Caleb went downstairs to watch the television before he and Silver needed to go to work. He gripped the edge of the fridge door with rigid claws, annoyed at Wave and more annoyed at himself. He'd been thinking horrible, depressing questions all of last night, fell asleep when his mind has virtually given up on him. But now those thoughts were rising to the surface again, making horrible, unwanted emotions cloud his cognitive processes.<p>

_Why did I ever allow myself to get attached? It had always been temporary, I knew they were going to leave. Friendship should have been out of the question, why did I allow it to develop into even more? I'm such an idiot._

"Oh, Tails, you're back!" Silver announced happily. Well, it was nice that someone was happy to see him. Of course, Sonic, Shadow and Knuckles hadn't returned. Shadow had been gone ever since that fight with Rouge, performing his job by travelling to the client's house instead of staying at the garage where he might run into Rouge, Sonic or Amy. Sonic had been sleeping at Freedom Fighter's HQ absolutely obsessed with taking Eggman down ever since they'd visited the cemetery together, and Knuckle's was at the Ruins doing who-knows-what. Possibly getting ready for the next race, which was in under a week's time.

"Yes, I am."

"Listen, Tails," Silver's words were a demand, but they sounded more like a request. He sat down, chewing on a celery stick he knew belonged to Amy. He didn't really feel like eating, but he knew that was unhealthy, and celery didn't really taste like anything anyway. "I know you're upset, we could hear the screaming from upstairs…"

Tails winced, "Ah, now that I think about it, we were pretty loud weren't we?"

"That's an understatement," Silver whispered sheepishly. Tails cast him an unimpressed look as he continued to gnaw at his celery. He really wanted some meat. He hadn't had dinner yesterday.

"But really, could you… you know… _not_ disappear on us? You _know_ you have a bounty on your head. You might have been taking a walk, but the rest of us thought you might have been kidnapped or something. Or… if you do want to take a walk, could you at least turn on your phone? You scared us to death."

Tails' free hand clenched. Of course! How could he have been so selfish? Even though he felt like absolute shit last night, didn't mean he should have gone and scared the rest of his friends. Silver's gentle scolding might not have had much punch in it, but it did make him feel guilty and more disappointed in himself for letting other people down. He put down the celery stick and was about to talk, to apologise and hope that their relationship hadn't been damaged by this act when Amy stormed out of her room.

Watching her walk around the balcony with glowing green eyes filled with absolute fury scared him a little. At least enough so that he found himself unable to move, like a deer in headlights, he felt trapped with nowhere to go. Amy took a few seconds to stare him down before her hand fell on his face with a force he didn't know she had. Tails took a second to figure out what had happened, unable to register the stinging on his cheek until it was throbbing and the skin beneath his fur was red, angry blood vessels rising to the surface. He looked up at Amy with a newfound malice. He didn't even try to nurse his cheek. Suddenly, he felt furious.

"How could you _do_ that to me? To the rest of us? We were _so_ worried Tails!"

He refrained from snapping at her, from telling her his heart had been broken, but he kept his tone level. It didn't sound level to the rest of them though, he was forcing the words through gritted teeth, "I needed some time to myself."

"Why did you turn off your phone? Why didn't you tell anyone else where you were going?"

"Because then someone would have come _after_ me," he wanted to add _you __**stupid**__ woman,_ because he could just envision how well that would go down.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again!" she cried, tears now flowing down her cheeks. "I swear you're always like Sonic, running away and not telling anyone…"

Suddenly, Tails felt indignant, shocked, and furious once again, and before he even understood what was happening, he was screaming at her, "Why have you _always_ got to compare me with Sonic? I don't follow him like some tagalong anymore. He's my hero, but he'd _not_ my role model."

"I can see what you're doing," Amy growled, and somehow, she looked more menacing than she ever had when she was wielding a knife and threatening them to exit her kitchen. "This stupid deal with the Grand Prix? Training with Shadow to become stronger? Involving yourself in schemes and politics? It's _dangerous,_ Tails! You're only _fourteen,_ for Heaven's sake. _Stop_ trying to be a hero!"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" he snarled at her, slamming his fists onto the table. "I'm not doing it for the _fame_ or the _glory, _or whatever petty thing you think motivates me. I'm doing all these things because Robotnik killed my parents. Right. _In front. Of. Me._" His fists were shaking now, and he had the unrestrained urge to break something. But he wouldn't cry. No. he refused to seem this pitiful and weak, especially when his argument required a strength he wasn't sure he had. An image of his mother, touching his face while she baked a cake in the kitchen flashed before his eyes. Another followed, this time of her body on the floor, blood from bullet wounds seeping into the carpet.

"Don't be an idiot! What do you hope to accomplish? You're just a kid!" she snapped her hands over her mouth as soon as she said it, but she didn't feel the need to pull the back. They were her thoughts after all. But… had she always seen him this way? Was she like Wave? Did she see his attempts to do the right thing as pitiful and foolish? Did she thing he was nothing but a naïve-martyr as well?

"Oh… is this how you view me?"

"Guys…" Silver said, trying to make them stop, but of course it wasn't working.

"Hiding stuff from Shadow, now you're hiding stuff from me as well? Have you got anything you'd like to say to Silver before you lose his trust as well, Ames?" Tails asked. He was grinning like a maniac, but there was no merriment in his malicious grin, in his eyes. They were broken. They were hollow. He stalked forward, and for the first time in ages, he realised that he and Amy were about the same height now. She started to recoil, suddenly, she wasn't as scary and headstrong as she had been. To think, Tails could scare Amy Rose, a force he'd once thought, should not have been reckoned with. "Or do you just have the compulsive need to compare me to Sonic, and to control me because you can't control _him?_"

Amy's watery green eyes snapped up from the floor, and she moved her hand to slap him again, but he was far too fast, suspecting she might have done it this time. She gripped her wrist, a firm hold with fox claws digging into her soft skin while he twisted it back to elicit some pain. Show her he was not as weak as she might have thought himself. He knew in the back of his mind he should not have been hurting her like this, but he just felt so damn angry. And Amy wasn't making it any better; hiding her self-righteousness behind concern… it really sickened him.

"Do you do it because you secretly know he'll never love you?"

"Stop it!" she sobbed. _"Stop it!"_

Tails let her wrist go allowing her to fall on the floor, but he knew she wasn't speaking about the physical pain. Seeing her crying on the floor made him feel better. But a small part of him was disgusted at what he had done, what he had said. Why was he acting this way? Was he releasing a sadistic side of himself he didn't know existed?

"I-I was just worried about you…" she said between hiccups, clutching her stomach, hunched over so her tears landed on the wood beneath them.

"Well _don't_ be. If you're only worried about me so you can indulge on your little mommy fantasy, forget about it!"

"Tails!" Silver scolded him, and it wasn't until he did so did he realise exactly how harsh it sounded. Still… pride and loathing wasn't about to allow him to take it back. The silver hedgehog dropped onto the floor next to Amy, placing a hand on her shoulder while Tails trumped down the stairs, more pissed off and annoyed than he had been in a while. He slammed the door to the garage, wondering if he should just run away like Shadow had.

* * *

><p><em>Safe and Sound <em>by Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars

* * *

><p>He'd been slamming tools against Gears in an attempt to calm down for the entire day, muttering under his breath and thinking dark, dark thoughts to satisfy that sadistic edge he'd developed in the argument with Amy. Now he was feeling conflicted, annoyed that Amy thought such things about him, worried that she was ring, furious that Amy was still trying to control him like that, disappointed that he'd made her cry, and scared that he was going to do it again. After all, what was <em>wrong<em> with him? He hated seeing people cry, and Amy was like an older sister to him. He knew he shouldn't have said those things, just as she had, but… he didn't even think those things, he was saying them on impulse because the rage within him compelled him to, and now… now Amy would never forgive him. He was sure of it.

He thought that maybe he should spend another night outside of Black Arms to cool down, but he didn't want to disappoint Silver or Caleb. They hadn't done anything to deserve being scared as they had. So when he decided he would give up on tools. He simply threw them back. He noticed he'd been using one of Wave's smaller wrenches, different from the others because of the bright green ribbon wrapped around its body. Normally, he would have just let it be, but he didn't like leaving tools out just in case they were impossible to find later.

He moved over to her favoured work bench and placed the wrench down, noticing something underneath the blue prints of some of her designs. He knew he shouldn't have been snooping around her stuff, but…

He tugged out the bright green package, adorn with a bright blue bow –the stick on ones that didn't require any untying whatsoever- and Wave's scrawled hand over the packaging. It said 'I'm sorry' in her slanting, elegant hand. It was a packet of mint candy.

A wave of embarrassment washed over him. She didn't know that he liked mint candy, when she found out, she was under the influence. So… if she remembered this particular piece of information, did that mean that she remembered what had happened while she was intoxicated?

The memory of her stealing his first kiss flooded his head, lighting his face on fire. The fox brushed his hand over his face, the flash of her secret confessions ruining any and all warm and fuzzy feelings threatening to take over his thinking process. He tossed the mint candy back on the table, it had obviously been hidden but he didn't care whether she realised he'd been snooping through her stuff or not. Really, what did it matter what she thought of him anyway?

Confident that he wouldn't have been able to work on any more of his commissions, he walked up the stairs and decided to forego dinner, staring at the ceiling and listening to music in an attempt to drown out the too-loud television playing in Silver's room. It took over and hour to fall asleep and it was three o'clock in the morning when he was woken again. He recognised her voice and her soft touch instantly, because despite how delicate her hands seemed now, they were still calloused from weapons training and strenuous gear work. She seemed to be muttering –no- singing something under her breath.

"_I remember tears streaming down your face,  
>When I said "I'll never let you go,"<br>When all those shadows almost killed your light.  
>I remember you said "Don't leave me here alone,"<br>But all that's dead and gone and past tonight." _

He was facing away from her. She was sitting on the edge of his bed. His was elevated off the ground with stairs that led down. So she probably had her feet on the sofa judging from the position on his bed. She was running her hand through his hair soothingly, the soft melody filling the room and making him relax against his will. He loved hearing her singing.

"_Just close your eyes,  
>The sun is going down.<br>You'll be alright,  
>No one can hurt you now.<br>Come morning light,  
>You and I'll be safe and sound.<em>

"_Don't you dare look out your window,  
>Darling everything's on fire.<br>The war outside our door keeps raging on.  
>Hold on to this lullaby.<br>Even when the music's gone.  
>Gone…"<em>

"Wave…" he croaked, getting up. She didn't seem startled by the movement, allowing him to sit up and run his hand through his bangs, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"I can't-I can't…" she stuttered, trying to explain what she was doing in his room. He didn't feel angry anymore. He felt resigned. Sad. Depressed. But the rage within him was quelled. More than anything, he wanted to see her smile. He reached forward and took her hand, smoothing soothing circles into her wrist in an attempt to get her to continue. "I can't leave you like this… Not when-I…"

He sighed, unconsciously pressing a hand to her cheek. She closed her eyes and pressed her beak into the warmth, eyelashes fluttering against his palm, "Take your time... I mean… I know we don't have much of it left, but…" _you know._

And she smiled a little at that, nodding her head, _Yes, I know._

They waited a moment before she gained the will to speak, "I… Tails… I never thought it would… It wasn't supposed to be this hard."

"What?"

"Befriending you," she admitted with a shrug. She pulled herself onto his bed, sitting cross legged so that her short-clad legs brushed against his. "You were _so_ easy to talk to, a friend even before I was willing to admit it. When I leave Soleanna, I know that leaving you will be the hardest bit."

Tails didn't answer to that. He didn't _know_ how to answer to that.

"Please …" she pleaded. She was only illuminated by Tails' window, the moonlight illuminating her silhouette, but he didn't need to see her to know she was crying. It was obvious in the uncharacteristic waver of her voice. It was in the way she held his hands, tightening like a scared child, he supposed, like he had been acting the day before. "What can I do to leave on a good note? I can't live with this regret, knowing that you hate me, even if you can't say it."

"Wave, I could never hate you…"

"No… not yet… but when you become a bitter and cynical adult, you will blame me. And I won't be there to comfort you."

"Hey," he murmured softly, "who's doing the comforting here?"

"Your humour is so ill-timed," she laughed, pressing her forehead into the crook of his neck, hot breath puffing over his collar bones. They stayed like that for the longest time before she murmured a question against the column of his throat. "Tails… tell me the truth… did you imprint on me?"

_I can let her go… Can I let her go? Shall I resign myself to unhappiness?_

"No…" he said, but his body stiffened, and his heartbeat hiked up. As if she could tell, she placed her hand over it, feather's soft even through the cotton of his shirt.

"I see…" Did she sound disappointed? No… it must have been a figment of his imagination. "Tails… we have a week left. How about I take you out tomorrow? We can do anything you like."

"Sure," he stated automatically, even though he knew he was just saying it to make her feel better. He didn't want to go out. He wanted the world to stop for a few blissful years so it could stay like this.

She brought one of his hands down and traced a finger over his palm, making it tingle, "I'm going to read your fortune," she announced. As she drew pictures into his palm, she still kept her forehead in his neck, looking down at his hands. "Eggman will topple. That I know… That I hope with all my heart. You will grow up successful, the best Gear mechanic in all of Soleanna. You will go down in history, Tails. You will meet a lovely girl-"

He shook his head, but she ignored the movement.

"-and she's going to love you, more than I ever could. You're going to forget all about me-"

This time, his protest was vocalised, "_No…_"

"-you're going to get married."

"Wave, _stop it._"

"And you're going to have lots of children."

It hurt because none of it was true. He knew none of that could ever happened when his heart was tied with hers, no matter how severed it was.

"And you're going to have no regrets."

His heart had been wrenched open, but it was still like hot fire burning him from the inside out, materialising in tears that spilled over his eyes and dripped onto the crown of her head. But she didn't move, couldn't move. They were both so afraid of breaking this moment. He was scared of so many things. Losing her above them all.

She twisted her head, and her lips brushed against the side of his neck, alerting him to the tears seeping into his fur. "I love you too, you know."

He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, knowing she felt the nod of his head against the top of hers. _Love like a friend. Love like a little brother._

"Wave, could you sing the rest of the song for me?"

Her voice was broken, cracking in bits of the melody, but music had never sounded so beautiful before.

"_Just close your eyes,  
>The sun…"<em> her voice cracked, _"is going down."_

He gripped her shoulders, tightening them as she started to break down.

_"You'll be alright,  
>No one can hurt you now.<br>C-Come morning light,  
>You and I'll be safe... and... sound."<em>

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>_  
><em>

**(i) **See Chapter 20: This World Has Changed Me, under the section _Remain_ by Alanis Morissette. **Black Wings** is an ethereal force rumoured to be gifted with the ability to take Eggman (or anyone like him) down. It's also rumoured that **Black Wings** is related to the **Fallen Angel** or **Seraph** which appeared after the **Crimson Night** during **Black Advent**. In fortunes, it appears as a mass of dancing black bones (or a skinny black silhouette) against a sky of blood red, adorned with feathered black wings.


	53. The Trick To Life

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Exploder**, **I3lackIyc Tha Wolf**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **LordCooler**, **Undead009**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **TheFunGuy**, **HalfWright**, **Subzero Inferno**, **RuningWitSizorz** and **Stonefaced610** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. ~Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Three  
>.<em>  
>"Everyone you love turns to dust, you'd jump off the edge but you felt pushed. By all that's unnecessary, you tread but you're off on the wrong foot."<br>…_  
><em>_Ave Maria _by P!nk

* * *

><p>Nine o'clock. Soleanna might have been named after the sun, but it ran twenty-four seven, so everything exciting was working deep into the night as well. So he agreed, and he'd been happy with his decision. It happened all the time, right? Friends lied to protect other friends? He hoped it was common. Surprisingly enough, lying to Wave came easier than he had expected. Of course, how could he expect to chain her like that? He sounded like a fool, but if she –by some miracle- did decide to stay, he'd know it was because of him, and not because of something silly and stupid and <em>horrid<em> as an imprint. But… he knew she wasn't going to come back. Wave had been sentenced really; there was no chance that whatever affection she had for him could overpower something like a commitment to family. He knew that if he was in the same situation then he would have chosen his siblings as well.

_Would I? I can't really be sure I would…_

Tails had spent the entirety of his life forgetting about stupid petty things, asking for huge favours, and always helping out his friends, so that when he asked for something big, he'd feel like he deserved it. But in this case, would he really be able to sacrifice those he held dear for one chance at love? He just… he couldn't imagine it. Besides… Wave was an avian… she was going to be alright. She'd find someone new, she'd forget all about him, _she_... could probably live the long and happy life that she'd envisioned for him.

She'd made out that she'd doomed herself to a life of misery, and in not telling her that he'd imprinted on her… so had he.

_Dammit, why does this have to be so complicated?_

When he opened up his garage for the day, the first thing he took note of was Silver and Marine fighting outside of Cesario's apartment building. He let out an involuntary groan when Silver screamed something at the raccoon and decided to storm off in the other direction. Marine fell down and started sobbing on the curb. Despite not wanting to get involved in any more fights, he knew he couldn't leave the raccoon like that so he closed the door of the garage and made his way over to the distraught girl.

"Hey," he said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, "did you wanna grab breakfast?"

"Depends," she sniffed, wiping her eyes, "'re you payin'?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, grabbing her hand and pulling her up, "sure."

They walked to the nearest café in complete silence, ordering quickly and then walking back to the garage. It was on their way back that Marine decided to talk, "T'was a stupid argument really. I was trying to get Silver to fess up to Blaze again, knowing that she hadn't really got a bloody memory eraser to get rid of 'is original confession," she shrugged. "He reminded me of how unlucky in love I am, said I'm gonna die alone. Said I'm an annoying brat, really, all of those hurtful things you never really get over."

"I'm sure Silv didn't mean them. Everyone at the Arms has been in a very… stressful state of mind." They made it back to the garage, noting Caleb coming out of Cesario's apartment block looking rather… numb, emotionless. He simply walked over to the Black Arms and forced himself in, like he didn't even see Tails and Marine behind him. Marine called out the brown-furred vulpine, but he didn't even respond. Tails merely shrugged his shoulders. "See what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do," she replied, seemingly getting over her tears. "Everyone's been in a right tizzy. Me and Silver were fighting over Heartnet as well."

"Really?" Tails asked curiously, getting out one of the Gears he was supposed to be redesigning and putting away his breakfast crepe. "What about?"

"Well… be honest with me mate, 'kay? Because I know you don't mind age gaps with your infatuation with that Wave character." Her blue eyes were so hopeful as she asked, "Do you think I could ever have a shot with Caleb?"

It pained him to say this, it really did, but if she found out after she had invested her heart into this stupid crush then she would just end up getting herself hurt, "I'm sorry, Marine, but I don't see it working."

"Why not?" she whined, as if they were speaking about a toy she couldn't have.

"Because," he shrugged, "Caleb's… twisted, very unhealthy… in the head if you know what I mean, and… to be frank; he's involved with someone else."

"Really?" Marine seemed more surprised than disappointed. "Oh my, it doesn't have something to do with the white-haired girl that's been hanging around recently?"

"What?" he asked in shock, does this mean that Marine had actually managed to _see_ Arly? It's not because he actually wanted to encounter her. He already knew enough about her that he didn't want to get involved. Arly was a GUN trained mercenary, and she had supposedly _died_ two years ago, plus she had a voice enchantment ability that might just be the end of him. Plus, apparently Arly had defeated Caleb in combat numerous times, he even found out from Rouge that Arly used to spar with _Shadow_ all the time back in Downunda. If Caleb couldn't beat her, then what hope did Tails have? "No… well-I… Yes… _sorta._"

"What do you mean; '_sorta_'?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well, Arly has something to do with it, but Mytho, her brother, is the one that he's involved with," he grinned at her embarrassed expression.

"Excuse I," she coughed, laughing a bit, "I didn't know he swung both ways."

"Well, you realise why I had to tell you, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, taking another bite of her bagel, "I'm glad you told me, so I didn't totally embarrass myself."

"No problem."

"Speaking of completely embarrassing myself," the raccoon dropped to the floor, looking around for a bit to place her wrappings in, "I needed to ask you about something."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I… I have this odd feeling, like… are my eyes changing colour?" she asked him. Sure enough, as she locked eyes with the fox, he realised her blue eyes were flashing to a darker shade of sapphire in the light.

"A little," he replied suspiciously, "what about it?"

"I think I might be… gaining another power… But that's stupid right?" she asked, grinning and making a little 'x' with her hands to imply that he should forget about the idea.

"No," he shook his head, and he would readily admit that he was glad that he wasn't the only one in this situation, "it's not stupid at all. Truth is Marine that I'm in the same situation! It's really weird, but I have a power that's different from my ability to fly."

"Really?" she asked, very excited about the entire affair obviously. "Could you show me?"

"I don't know if it's something I can show you," he pondered, placing the Gear he was working on, on the floor, "but I'll give it my best shot."

They moved the Gear further across the floor, so that they were about three meters away, still leaning on his workbench, and then he closed his eyes, switching his sight to Negative. Everything turned a blackish-blue, except for the Gear which was switched on, so Tails could see the electricity pulsing through the device. Focusing all of his energy on forward panel of the Extreme Gear, he watched, mesmerised as it started rocking backwards and forwards. Seconds later, Marine screeched as the device started to fall apart, automatically disassembling itself and getting faster and faster the more Tails concentrated.

She looked back at the fox when the Gear was in pieces, wide eyed and worried, "Did… did you really do that?"

"I _think _so," he stated, still bewildered that he'd done that. He'd only meant to take off the panelling, but he ended up disassembling it. He switched back to Negative mode, and then, without even moving, the pieces of the Gear started to assemble themselves once again, constructing itself into the exact model that it had been before, as if it had never changed.

"Holy green jackeroos," she gasped, looking at the board and then at Tails. "I've _read_ about your power before!"

"Could you tell me? Because the name of it eludes my memory."

"You're a technopath! Someone with the ability to control technology and metal."

"Well then explain why I can _short_ circuit stuff as well," he stated dryly.

"You silly duffah, you obviously have control over electricity as well, a sub power to help support your main one. Tails, that's amazing!" she grinned.

"Why? It's just another reason for non-mutants to hate me."

"Don't you see? Eggman's entire base _relies_ on tech! His robots, his communications. Do you realise the good you could do with this power?"

Now that he thought about it, he'd never seen it that way… if he thought about all the damage that he could deal Eggman with this power… if he trained it well enough… Solaris… he _actually _had a chance now!

Grinning now, from ear to ear, he tried to contain his excitement and casually asked Marine what her power was. "Oh, nothing special compared to yours, I just have the ability to sense special objects."

"What, like… a treasure hunter?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah!" she grinned, "You want me to demonstrate?" She hopped off the table and grabbed his hand, thoroughly confusing him. "Just relax and think about your least favourite board." He opened the wall in his garage containing all of his board and she pointed to a heavy-looking, brown-pained one and he nodded in astonishment. "Alright, now your fastest board." She got it right the second time. "And now, your most expensive." She got it right again. Tails had over seventy boards in inventory, and Marine had managed to pick out the special ones within seconds.

"Marine, that's an _amazing_ gift! Something even _more_ impressive than mine! You'll never lose anything again and…" Tails' mind was already ticking. What if Marine used her amazing power to find the chaos emeralds for them… or even better; the Key to Babylon Garden.

"Actually… I have a favour to ask you. Would you mind coming out tonight? Say, nine o'clock?"

* * *

><p><em>No Hands (Cover)<em> by Neon Hitch

* * *

><p>"<em>Are you absolutely sure about this, Tails?"<em>

"Yes," he replied, carting around five new gravity packs (technology meant to change the polarity of certain objects) and heading back to the garage. His sneakers thumped against the ground more readily now, ready to burst into a sprint at any time. The sun was just slipping under the horizon, and that meant that the Solean scum was going to come out to play soon. He'd just come to the familiar arch of Lethal Highway, but it was still a fair bit of space before he'd make it back to Black Arms.

He could hear the crows cawing in the distance, hear the sounds of the regular Solean night starting to begin; thrashing metal, car sirens… screaming. He was all used to this, except maybe the screaming bit. Normally, people died too fast to cause much of a scene, and often, those people were mutants. But he didn't have the time to detour to investigate tonight; he needed to get back to the garage if he wanted to make sure he would survive the night.

His nightmares resembled this; these unfamiliar silhouettes emerging from the alleyways, whispering things he couldn't understand, and flashings of metal, steel and weapons. Now… guns he could disarm, but he'd be hard pressed trying to stop a knife or a crowbar, or something else that could have committed hate-crime just as easily as MarDean had. Were they focused on him tonight though? He hoped to Solaris they weren't.

The lights of the streets flickered on, but it was hard to see very far beyond where he was going, because of twisted building structure, and the growing shadows casting breaks between the houses. He was frightened. The sweat was starting to trickle down his back, he started shaking. He was contemplating leaving his stuff behind and bolting back. He couldn't fly to get out of here… _shit!_

Suddenly the gravity of the situation hit him like a sack of bricks, if someone came out of the alleyways, someone stronger, and meaner and _sicker_ than MarDean or his cronies, then what would stop them from _murdering _him?

_Oh shit… Fuck! What am I going to do?_

He started shivering, the shadows of the alleyways were getting closer, and Tails was ultimately defenceless against them. He'd hope that GUN training was enough, he's disarm them, and then he'd _run._ He'd run as _fast _as physically possible.

Those shadows and silhouette's became real men, _real_ mutant-hating men, so Tails decided to drop the stuff he was holding and bolt. Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough this time and one of the frightening shadows caught him by his injured tails, twisting and dragging him back. "Let go of me!" he demanded.

He noticed that one of the men was holding a gun, so his vision turned negative, and he forced the man holding the gun to aim it at the man that was holding his tails. Bullet fire echoed through the night, but his aiming was off, and it skimmed across the ground.

"Dammit! Make sure the mutant freak doesn't have the chance to use his power!"

"Holy _fuck! _He has two tails! It's Fox-trot!"

"Think of how much ring we could get for bringing in his pelt!"

"Quick! Shoot him!"

Tails felt cold hard steel being pressed against his forehead, but his limbs were restrained, and he was starting to come to terms with the fact that he could die when the crowbar fell from the man's hand and hit the ground with a vicious clang.

"Oh my, can't have that happening, can we?"

Tails gasped, so completely shocked he had no idea how to react or what to say. Instead he looked up, wide blue eyes observing the voluptuous body of his saviour, who, with thin delicate hands, had just dropped from the sky and twisted the man's neck and bent it so far back that he was dead within seconds. His body fell to the floor with a great thump, but her own was light and steady on her feet, a furry white tail swishing around with a swagger women in Crisis City did not possess. This woman was a goddess with the voice of an angel, and apparently, the very heart of Lucifer himself.

_It's Arielle Truscott. _

Her sweet vocals were spoken with a deep silky tone with beauty in it that betrayed the horrendous deed she had just committed, even though the man before her had been about to commit the same crime. She looked amazing, dressed in small black ankle boots, black denim shorts, a white tank top and a sleeveless blank vest. Her wrists, hair and tail were decorated with the strange ornaments and bracelets that Caleb wore all the time. And when she turned around to lock eyes with her, he was mesmerised by the dark sapphire shade, second in intoxication only to Wave.

She was so beautiful, but there was also a sense of… an _ominous _feeling about her.

He watched in astonishment as she disarmed the guard with the gun with a summersault kick, landing the heel of her boot on his wrist which was announced with a loud crack. She caught the fallen gun and shot the man that was holding Tails right in the head. He was bewildered as he observed her fighting style, all the efficiency of gun training, but a smoothness and effortless grace that he couldn't help but be envious of the way she moved. It was like dancing.

The remaining four or five men were scattered in the darkened street bleeding or distorted on the floor in minutes. Tails had never witnessed such a swiftly done act of brutality like this, committed by someone that was so dark with her beauty she was _intoxicating._

He needed to get home. He needed to tell _Caleb_ what he'd seen!

"Wh-why did you save me?" he asked alarmed as she danced around the men's bodies.

Her silky purr sent shivers down her spine, "Because _someone_ doesn't want you dying yet, Foxy. So stay alive for me until then, okay?" He couldn't help feeling nervous as she walked up to him, bending down to meet him at eye level. The gap in her shirt allowed him an embarrassing –for him- view of her cleavage, but she didn't seemed scandalised by it at all. Normal teenagers would have given their left arm for this view, but that wasn't what Tails was interested in. What he noticed was that Arly had a scar over her left breast, in the exact same position to the scar mirrored on Caleb's chest.

"What am I supposed to tell him?" Tails asked, a note of hopelessness in his voice.

She tilted her head, and a vicious smirk curled her full lips, "Five-thirty. Cemetery. Right after the fourth race."

"The cemetery's gone," the fox replied, gulping.

She leant in further, her cold breath washing over his ears while the words filled his mind with velvet, "We can meet over the Black Arms he drew on the pavement."

And because of that, and the way she disappeared humming as if she hadn't existed in the first place, she scared him so much more than the muggers had.

"_You'd kill for answers but learn to live with,  
>Questions, Who what why how and if,<br>I'll sit back detached tear our your hair,  
>Oh but on the contrary...<em>

"The trick to life is not to get too attached to it,  
>The trick to life is not to get too attached to it…"<p>

* * *

><p><em>The Trick To Life <em>by The Hoosiers

* * *

><p><em>Earlier that morning…<em>

"Caleb… Stop it and _calm down._" His voice was cautious, bearing an air of authority and demand that had never really left him in high school. Well… Mytho might not have been different, but Caleb had totally changed. He'd been fucking _broken_ and now he was forbidden from expressing his emotions, like he was supposed to initiate that bloody soldier training they'd tried to hammer into him in his last year at Downunda.

It wasn't working. The wolf's words were going in one ear and out the other. "You're going to hurt someone at this rate," Mytho warned him, trying to grab onto his arm. The hand wrapped around his arm singed the fur, but he tried to fight off the shudder as he told the GUN commander to let it go. The brown fox shook his arm away, heat and fury clouding his judgement as he stormed up to Cesario's house, the fallen red leaves of the trees that lined her walkway snapping like bones beneath his worn Converse sneakers.

They'd just gone to see an obliten (more commonly referred to as a memory eraser) but in this certain case, they'd done so much more than retrieve a memory that was lost. No. This time they'd taken his _resolve,_ his reason to keep on fighting her. He hadn't even _seen_ her walking corpse, hearing her singing songs and beckoning him when he felt most vulnerable, but she still managed to butcher his sanity. How could he hate her, now that he knew what she'd done? He knew he could never really despise her with all of his soul, partly because he didn't have one, but secondly because Arly was his mate, and the imprinting process was a malicious _bitch_ with no sense of decency. He didn't see the _evil, _the _wretchedness_ inside her until it was too late, and now she was trying to break her down, and use him as a fucking puppet.

Contacting Mytho again had been a _mistake._

Finding out this truth concerning Arly _would_ be the kilter between his death and his suicide, he knew it.

He didn't mean to sound like an absolute dick, but in comparison to Prower's situation, his was a lot worse. He'd been analysing the situation, and who could avoid the yelling and crying they'd heard the other day. Tails' relationship with Wave might have had a miniscule chance… but his connection with Arly had none at all. She was (un)dead after all, and she was Hell bent on dragging him down with her.

"I can't!" he wouldn't be the first to admit that his screaming was coming of as hysterical sobbing. "I need to-need to tell Cesario _off_ for this! And then I need to go to Welshscot," because he envied the bastard for hiding his emotions like Caleb knew he couldn't, "ask what the fuck is up with the _zombies,_" he spat out the word, "and then tell him to stop _seducing_ my best friend."

"Lev, I didn't need to know that," Mytho sighed –like one would when dealing with an unreasonable person, as _if _Caleb was being unreasonable- as he trailed after the fox, who, irritated at his persistence, just decided to ignore whatever he had to say.

"Don't call me that," his face contorted into a scowl, eyes blazing and fangs bared. Natural defence mechanism, he would say. The nickname was one that only Mytho used, it came from the last segment of his name 'Ca-leb', except if you said 'leb' really fast it ended sounding like 'lev', which sounded really close to 'liv', alternatively a girl's name- one taken from one of Caleb's favourite books. So Caleb didn't like it. "Fuck off, you're not involved anymore."

"No!" as if Mytho could control him anymore, "You're going to regret this," Mytho urged him as they reached Leilani's door.

"No I'm not. Cesario is lucky I don't kill her for keeping this secret from me."

"As if you could. She might be psychotic, but you're sickly and-"

"Don't you even _dare_ go there! I can't believe you have the _audacity_ to joke about something like that," he snarled at him, blue eyes sparking like electricity. His friends knew he was broken, but what kind of… _sicko _would do that to him! Wasn't he miserable enough?

Mytho decided to shut up, because speaking any more was going to get him killed, really, or at least permanently maimed. He should have known to keep his distance from Caleb whenever he was like this back at the academy. He might have been scrawny, but the empath had broken his limbs numerous times.

The fox simply ignored him in favour of slamming his fist on the door. Cecillia answered, so Caleb was curt with his response, pressing a sense of urgency and understanding to the woman's mind, "I need to see Leilani."

"Ano?" she asked, and the brown-furred fox rolled his eyes, scrounging around his head for whatever Tagalog he could remember.

"Kailangan ko upang makita Leilani."

She gave him a confused look before yelling something else in her language, Cesario yelled something back which sounded like a dismissal. Caleb snarled and yelled, "Cesario, get the _fuck _down here!" Cecillia disappeared a moment later, after Caleb had forced the impression of fear into her mind.

"What's up?" Leilani asked, like she was completely and totally innocent, as if being called down with language that horrible was a regular occurrence. The fox snarled at her, as he'd been doing so much as of late, before tugging down his shirt and pointing to his scar, "When were you going to tell me where this scar had come from?"

Her brown eyes widened with shock, her lips turning down in a scowl, then her eyes narrowed at Mytho who was standing to the side of her walkway looking in another direction and whistling innocently. "You're her _brother, _how could you betray her like that?"

"I'm also his _boyfriend-_"

"No, you're _not!_" Caleb whipped around, "You buy me food, play video games and watch TV with me. I snark, accompany and provide sexual pleasure to you sometimes. I _told_ you we couldn't be anything serious. When will that phase through your _thick_ head? I _imprinted_ on Arly, so I can _never_ love y-"

"'Imprint'?" Mytho echoed, looking shocked and hurt at the same time, "When did it become that serious?"

"You are _seriously_ not asking me that," the brown fox rolled his eyes and turned back to Cesario. "What else have you kept from me? Do it quickly or I will _track down_ Arielle's walking corpse _by myself!_"

As if the gods couldn't make his life _more_ miserable, Welshscot appeared at the door behind Leilani, looking as shocked as the emotionless man _could_ look.

_Gods, what the Hell are they doing with each other? I mean, I knew that Lani had a crush on him, but I didn't think she would actually act on it. What am I thinking? I was supposed to be furious at her!_

"Did you say walking corpse?"

"Fuck… Solaris, strike me where I stand," Caleb swore, rubbing his eyes in frustration.

"It's best we speak about this inside," Welshscot explained, grabbing the scruff of Caleb's flannel and dragging him inside, before the furious fox could protest. Once they were safely inside Leilani's flat, the fox slapped his mentor's hand away, growling at the two humans, who looked like they'd been having lunch before he came to interrupt them. Before he could throw his abuse and accusations at the both of them, the ginger-haired medic beat him to it, "No, we were not on a date, so you can shove your accusations up your arse."

"Oh, how very funny," he retorted sarcastically, looking around. "Where's Chris?"

"HQ," Leilani answered, looking a little flushed from the medic's earlier comment. Caleb rolled his eyes, barely suppressing a groan of disgust. He couldn't believe her, of course they'd be _chaotic_ together. What was she thinking? The only reason she liked him was because he looked like Skye.

"Good, he doesn't have to hear me say what an absolute _bitch_ you are for keeping this-this… this _colossal_ secret from me! How could you be so selfish?" his head snapped to Mytho. "You as well! I thought I could _trust_ the both of you!"

"There's no need to act like that, Prentis," Welshscot tried to calm him down, but he wasn't having any of it. It was hard to remember the last time he'd felt this conflicted, this… hopeless.

"No. No! What are you even _doing_ here?"

"Leilani and I were discussing Arielle Truscott, and her current… nature," he replied, still as emotionless as ever, and it was because of that Caleb felt more furious than ever. How could he keep his composure like that? God dammit.

"Going behind my back-?"

"Caleb, _sit down_ and _**shut up.**_" Leilani's eyes had flashed red, and despite wanting to protest against this, he felt compelled to obey the command, so he did. Crossing his arms over his chest, he sat back down and waited for her to talk. As soon as he stopped talking, he felt a pressure alleviate from his chest. After a few moments of intense silence, the female GUN agent spoke words, softly and quickly, hands clasped together like she was a bloody psychiatrist, "Arly asked me not to tell you. She really begged me not to tell you."

"Fat lot of good that did her," he snarked at the GUN agent, receiving a disapproving look from Welshscot and Mytho. He didn't really care about what they thought at the moment. This was not one of those times where he could fight for composure. He'd never felt so betrayed before… Scratch that, he had. But that was a different story.

"Tell her what?" the medic asked, leaning his chin on a bandaged hand, grey eyes gaining an inquisitive gleam to them.

"That she gave up her life to save Caleb's," Mytho sighed, looking away from the scowling teenager. "She asked me to give permission to donate as next of kin."

"Why didn't _I_ get a say in any of this?" the black-haired fox growled at the both of them. He brought his legs up on the chair and crossed them, muttering into his hand, "She killed me in the first place…"

"Donate?" the psychiatrist, seemingly ignoring his student.

"Mhmm," Leilani nodded, looking back at her best friend sadly before turning back to Welshscot. "Did you want to tell the story, or should I?"

"You say it," Caleb consented, still not looking very happy about it. Looking downright pissed about it. "I might miss some details, what with almost _dying_ and all."

"Two years ago, Caleb and Arly were involved in an Extreme Gear accident while they were both running away from henchmen sent by Claudel Winchester. They crashed into a gas station, and faulty wiring from stolen Extreme Gears caused a huge explosion. I was at the airport when I heard the news. I was about to go back to Downunda, having just been released from the asylum. I was called because I was one of the only contacts on Arielle's phone.

"In the crash, Caleb was impaled across the chest by some piping out of the ground, and because of this, his right coronary artery was completely destroyed. If he didn't have a transplant very soon, then he was surely going to die. Thing is…"

"He's AB," Mytho stated abruptly.

"Too rare a blood type to find any donations…" Leilani murmured, supporting her forehead with a delicate, thin hand, "Except, by some morbid miracle Arly happened to be AB, with a working heart condition. So Arly asked to have her heart transplanted into Caleb."

At this, the fox leaned forward and placed his head in his hands, black hair shielding his face as he shook his head softly.

"She said -when she tried to reason it with me- that it was to give you a little more time," Leilani murmured, her voice breaking, placing a hand on his shoulder. She was unused to showing this degree of emotion with something that made her feel vulnerable. She flinched away when Caleb's claw's found her fingers and three red streaks of blood erupted from the olive skin. She hissed and retreated to the kitchen to soak up some blood, but she didn't bother trying to treat it just yet.

"Why… why didn't you tell me she died because of me?" he asked, voice hoarse and rough with emotion. He hated this, feeling so pitiful and weak, especially when Arly had worked so hard to make him stronger. "I was fine with hating her, for ruining me like this, but then you had to go and tell me she died to let me live…" his voice broke, and he turned and pressed his temple into the chair. "You even had someone erase my memory so I couldn't remember where this ugly scar came from… How could you betray me like this?"

"We're sorry, Callie. Arly asked us too… she _also_ thought it would be better if you hadn't known."

"But now…" Welshscot interrupted, waving his hand with what looked like dismissal, "Now she's a different person, an animated corpse with malicious intent. And it sounds like she'd like to remedy the mistake of keeping you alive."

"That's where he comes in," Leilani ran a hand through her raven hair, and flicking her hand in the medic's direction, "I was just asking him about the nature of the animated corpses running about the streets with no shadows. GUN hasn't dealt with zombies since the Crimson Night."

"They're not the same," the medic explained, doing this with a note of what he _thought_ was irritation, "These lost souls can animate their bodies again, but they can't really feel emotions. They know what they're supposed to feel and they remember _how_ an emotion feels, but they can't actually experience it. It's their forthcoming. They don't need to sleep, they don't need to eat. But their bodies can feel all the physical sensations that they used to. The only emotion that seems relatively real is all the horrible ones, the sins like envy, wrath and such."

"How do you get rid of them?" Mytho asked him, because as much as he loved his sister, he knew that the woman walking around in her body could not have been her. There was no telling how much of Arly was still left.

"Ordinarily, all you would have to do is destroy their hearts," the medic brought up his unbandaged arm, flexing muscle carefully before making a crushing gesture with his hands. "Normally, voodooists only need the heart to be intact to animate the dead. But I found out a month ago that there's some mysterious force capable of animating bodies _without _the use of their hearts," he looked down, some dark expression crossing over his face as he muttered something under his breath, before looking up and addressing all of them again, "in this case, it wouldn't apply to Arielle, because her heart is still intact."

"Yes," Leilani muttered, "it's just in the wrong person."

Caleb was shell shocked, gripping the fabric over the heart that was not his. "So," he stated numbly, "the only way to kill Arly again…"

He started shaking, gripping the arm rests of the chair so tightly that his claws dug into the leather.

"…would be to kill me."


	54. Time Bomb

**domi|note**

Holy fudge monkeys! 601 reviews! Thanks _so_ much guys! Never in my wildest dreams did I actually think **Anthem of Our Dying Day** would get this far. Without your support, I would have given up a long time ago.

Thanks to **The Loner in the Shadows**, **LordCooler**, **HalfWright**, **Undead009**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Ficfan412**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Stonefaced610** and **Exploder **for reviewing the last chapter.

**Ficfan412~ **We are, thanks for the concern.

**Note!** _Negative Vision_, if you need more help envisioning it, is a mix between 'Eagle Vision' from **Assassin's Creed** and 'Detective Mode' from **Batman: Arkham Asylum/City**. But Tails can only identify technology, his vision of other living beings is very feint due to the small amount of electrical pulses and the different signature of life force compared to tech and electronics.

**Another note!** Remember the warning about **character death** in the beginning of the story? Yeah. You might want to watch it now. It could strike at _any_ time.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em><em>The mind can forget what the body, defined by each breath, subject to the heart beating, does not. ~Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War<em>  
><em>…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Four  
>.<em>  
>"Well there's no way out of this so let's stay in. Every storm that comes will still come to an end."<br>…_  
><em>_The Other Side (Dubstep Mix)_ by Pendulum

* * *

><p>He slammed into the entry of the Black Arms, fishing out his keys and stabbing them into the door, not even wincing at the violent rebound the glass and timber endured as it thwacked into the stone walls. Instead he slammed it back, staring at it for a long moment as if the entryway would sprout tentacles and puke glitter. He was frozen in stance, so transfixed on making sure the door didn't move that he failed to notice Jet sneaking up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Moving into immediate battle stance, Tails grabbed his hand by the wrist, twisted around and moved to twist Jet's arm in unimaginable pain. Luckily enough, Jet had anticipated a hasty move, kicking off the ground and moving <em>with<em> Tails' movement to avoid a disjointed arm.

When Tails realised it was only Jet, he backed away and muttered an apology, clasping his elbows in a submissive, timid gesture. He looked around, taking note of Wave, Storm and Marine in the background as Jet bent down to examine him properly. She'd heard from Wave once that Jet was the better medic out of all of them, compensation for being physically weaker than the both of them, she supposed. Storm was good at things requiring strength, and he was better as socialising than the rest of them as well. Wave was intellectual and musically orientated. Their strengths were odd ones. It seemed that he was fine, because Jet just helped him up and he stood on his own two feet with no further problems.

"What happened, Tails?" Wave's voice asked tentatively, and nervousness washed over him once again.

"Umm… Where's Heartnet?" he inquired, inclining his head curiously, crossing his arms over his chest in a better attempt to get a grip on himself.

"Upstairs. Sleepin'," Marine answered, narrowing her eyes at his odd display of shaky jitters. He couldn't blame them for staring at him; he must have looked the most ridiculous sight, having just run ten long blocks from the attack site where he had met Arielle. He was still spooked by her paleness, and the way she moved through the darkness like a ghost. And those _eyes- _technically, they should have hazed over by now, but they were still so vivid, like melting sapphire.

He really should have checked. He didn't really know it was Arly, unless she didn't have a shadow, it could have been anyone. But it was so dark, and he was so shocked he didn't have the chance to check.

"Now that I think about it, he looked pretty spooked too. You see some ghost, Tails?" Storm tilted his head in question, wondering why everyone seemed so scared all of a sudden.

He gulped, forcing out a chuckle, but his voice sounded raspy and hoarse, "Y-yeah… Something like that."

"Did you need a break, or…?" Wave asked, bending down to look at his face. He flushed at how close they were, and when she observed his expression, she backed away too, remembering that they were _meant_ to be on some kind of date instead of treasure hunting this time of the night. God, he felt pathetic. He was supposed to be bringing the gravity equalisers and all he could think of was that he was still too weak to defend himself. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if Arielle hadn't been there to take care of those thugs.

"No, I'm fine," he growled, pushing her concern away.

"Alright then, go up and get changed," she replied cautiously, placing her hands in her pockets, "wear something dark. When you come down, we have to bind your tails together."

Tails assumed that was to make sure any wandering security cameras wouldn't be able to catch his silhouette. Everyone else would be fine, but he had distinctly two tails, so it was going to be difficult to explain that to authorities that investigated them later. Tails didn't have any jackets warm enough that were distinctly black, so he ended up borrowing something from Shadow's room. Shadow wasn't around, so he didn't think he would mind, plus he was only a few sizes bigger.

He rolled his eyes when Wave snorted at his attire, "You look like a scene kid."

"Shut up," he growled as the bird pinched the back of his jacket. "I can't go into Silver and Caleb's room because he's sleeping, Knuckle's room is locked and Sonic never wears black."

"What about Am-" Storm was about to ask when Wave clamped her hand over his mouth. Tails sighed and pretended he didn't hear the comment.

"Whatever, let's go."

Jet opened up a toolbox that Wave stashed under her favourite workbench, pulling out a bright red cape. He watched the way the green hawk handled it, with care, with a loving tenderness in his eyes he normally never saw. Marine touched it, clutching it to her chest as she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they flashed a brighter ice blue before returning to their normal aquamarine.

"I know where to go," she told them as Tails finished installing the extension for his air ride. Now it could hold two people. Of course, Marine had been expecting them to do what Tails and Wave had done during the second race. He just laughed and tried to explain exactly how uncomfortable that was, even if there was no one firing ammunition at you and the rain wasn't pelting down mercilessly.

He got on and beckoned her to sit behind him, telling her to wrap her arms around his waist. Marine furrowed her eyebrows, looking tentative. He would have reprimanded her for acting like such a girl when he noticed a dark-looking expression crossing Wave's face. He tilted his head, noticing the curl of her lips as they turned down, the furrow of her eyebrows and the contemptuous little wrinkle between her eyes, the kind that only crossed her face when she saw someone with something that she wanted. Unfortunately, before he could examine the emotion she caught him staring and quickly turned to her own board.

He shrugged and told Marine to hurry up, bringing up the holographic map and compass from the monitor of his Air Ride. Both of the technicians had adjusted Storm and Jet's specs to silence-mode and adjusted all of their combat programming to attack and evade. If they were caught they needed to get out of there as soon as possible. They pulled on their communicators and started the engines, moving out of the garage's driveway one by one.

"Marine, where are we heading?"

She paused a second, gripping the cape in her hand a little tighter, he could feel the anxiety in her arms, "Head to tha fourth entrance 'f Lethal Highway from the Crisis Court, I'll see from there."

Getting to their destination was rather uneventful, which made Tails uneasy. His holographic map was designed to recognise common microchips installed in most of Eggman's patrol robots, but spies and reconnaissance robots were harder to come by, and whoever manufactured Eggman's robots made sure they were updated frequently, meaning it was incredibly hard to make sure he was up to date when he needed to track them, or avoid them like this.

They didn't meet any uninvited guests, even when they reached the industrial side of Soleanna. They stopped by the edge of the Tar Pits, the closest entrance to the largest construction site, or rather _excavation_ site in the city. The Tar Pits always gave him the creeps, mostly because he didn't know what people liked to throw into those things (like forty-thousand rings, or dead bodies) and it was dangerous to fall inside. Marine kept on pointing further into the excavation, so they kept on flying over dunes of brown mist and the acrid stench of burning minerals.

They ducked under other cranes and diggers when robots passed overhead, turning off all of their lights so that they wouldn't draw attention to themselves. It was only when the rest of Soleanna was a simple silhouette in the distance and he could imagine that he was stuck in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that Marine shouted for them to stop.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, alarmed by her conflicted expression. The raccoon hopped off the Extreme Gear and he powered it down, leaving it between the break between two large dirt dunes, shielded with the overlapping mechanical arms of several diggers and a few cranes. The raccoon held up her hand for silence while Tails switched to Negative vision in an attempt to scan for any nearby robots.

As soon as his eyesight became lighter, because black turned white and brightness turned dark, he started registering small black specks in the whiteness ground below him. He squinted to get a better look at them, wondering if they really looked like they were getting closer, or if it was just a figment of him imagination. A few moments later, the Babylon Rogues had caught onto Tails' weird behaviour and started looking down as well, but they couldn't see the monsters rising through the surface by wiggling through the grainy dirt.

"Get back on the gear!" Tails warned, grabbing a wrench sticking out of Wave's belt and swinging it as he would a baseball bat, just as a robotic snake launched out of the dirt. He caught it in the head, and the force of the impact smashed its hard drive to pieces, bolts and broken microchips were sent flying. He snatched the body of the broken snake and pushed Marine into his gear so that she was sitting in the front.

"You floggin' biscuit! What am I supposed to do with this thing?" she yelled at him, the insult turning into a squeal as one of the robotic cobras wriggled out from the dirt and flew at Marine's face. He smashed that one with the wrench as well before tossing the instrument back to Wave. The fox placed both feet on the arms of his air ride and leant in front of Marine to reach the glove compartment, fishing out a spanner to arm himself.

"Drive it!"

_"Shit! That one almost got me!"_ Jet exclaimed into the communicator.

"Storm, on your left!" Tails announced, shifting his position so he was riding the Extreme Gear backwards, but he was being careful to look forward once in a while as well. The big bird turned to his side and snatched one of the deadly mechanical beasts mid-strike, crushing its neck.

_"Tails, how can you _see_ them?" _Wave's voice filtered through the madness, and for a split second, Tails remembered that he hadn't told the swallow of his new found power. They'd been fighting while he had discovered it. A twinge of guilt made him loose focus for a split second and Marine let out an ear-splitting screech. He snapped his head back around and slammed the flat of the spanner into the head of another snake, turning back to yell at Jet to look behind him.

_"We have to get away from here!"_ Storm's voice was barely audible over the hissing of the mechanical vipers.

Tails slammed his hand on button near one of his feet, batting away another snake and yelling another warning at Wave. "Wave, three o'clock! Yellow Tail Two-point-oh, Voice Command _activate!_"

**"Voice Command initialising. Password?"** said the board, mockingly calm while its owner fought to the death against shoots of snakes coming at him from every possible angle.

"'Paper cranes'."

**"Password accepted, Welcome Miles."**

"Yeah, whatever. Storm, two behind you! Jet, one on your left. Computer, bring up the holographic map," he demanded, swerving around a second so he could see the Extreme Gear obey his command. He saw two snakes worming through the dirt to get to him, jumping out at the same time. He had a split second to attack them, gripping the spanner in the middle and slamming both ends into their heads, one end of the tool coming in one side of their head and out of the other. He swerved around just as one of the snakes jumped at them from the front but it was far too fast for him to hit with the wrench. So he was surprised when a burst of adrenaline shot through his system and white erupted in front of his eyes as the snake convulsed and dropped in Marine's lap, causing her to scream into the communicators.

Well, the snake wasn't moving anymore. Tails couldn't even see the electricity flowing through it, so it didn't look like a threat anymore. He ignored it and looked back at the Rogues, "Wave, behind you! Computer, bring up our location." The map flashed for a second and then a bright yellow spot was in the centre of the moving map.

"Computer, what is our height above sea level?"

**"Sixty meters."**

"Mark the steepest incline rising to two hundred meters."

Five bright blue spots flashed on the map and Tails looked up to examine the closest; the horizontal plane of one of the giant cranes. How was he going to get Marine up there? Oh yeah…

"Crap! Jet, Storm, five to your right! Wave, two to your left-" he bashed the head of another jumping snake. The Negative vision was starting to make his head hurt, but he couldn't afford to switch back now. They were nearing the crane, a few seconds and they'd reach the base.

Tails did remove the Ark of the Cosmos from his engine after the second race, but he'd moved it to his wrist instead, so he could always use it in an emergency. Now was one of those times. "Marine, do you trust me?" he yelled.

"Wha-?"

"Just keep steering into the crane."

"Are you _crazy?_"

"Just do it!"

Three. Two. One.

He saw Marine flinch over the controls, about to skitter to the side when he focused all of his energy into the metal arm band hiding under his gloves. The air around his Gear convulsed and his vision rippled, just like the first time this had happened to him. His Extreme Gear was hoisted into the air, now he needed to focus on realigning the Air Ride before the Ark of the Cosmos lost its power. Marine, realising her steering skills were not needed, snatched the ratchet from Tails' hand and swiped at the snakes below.

_Gravity control._

Suddenly, all of the energy that was focused on realigning Tails' Air Ride left in a violet gust, propelling them up the crane at an almost eighty-five degree angle. Marine screamed when she realised how distorted their view of the world was, riding over the rickety side of the crane, ascending the metal faster and faster. Tails was exhilarated.

The Babylon Rouges, versed in the gravity controls for Extreme Gear already, followed him up with ease. He released a happy whoop when they reached the top of the crane, away from the snakes and over two hundred meters in the air. He started panicking when Marine screamed that she didn't know how to stop. He almost snapped his wrist slamming his hand on the handle bars and twisting the metal, opening the frontal puffer jets and adding some extra gravity force to stop them before they toppled over the end of the crane.

When Marine tumbled off the Gear she snarled and gave Tails a rough shove, "_You_, Prower, are chock-_full_ of crazy! If you _ever_ want to _use_ that tongue of yours again, I'd suggest you never do that or I will _rip_ it out!"

"Gods, okay. I'm sorry," as soon as he said it he clamped his hand over his mouth, a blush colouring his cheeks as Marine and the Rogues started laughing at him. His voice had just risen uncontrollably before dropping back down again.

"O.M.G. Testie pop! Tails, you're finally becoming a man!" Wave gushed, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a forceful kiss on the cheek. His face turned redder as he tried to push her off, irritated that his voice had to betray him now of all times.

"Quit it, it's not a big deal."

"Of course it is! We can look forward to you sounding like something that isn't a pre-pubescent teenaged girl," she laughed, and despite feeling utterly mortified, he started laughing too.

"Don't worry," Storm assured, "When Jet was fourteen, his voice was _way_ worse than yours**(i)**."

"No arguing there," Wave laughed.

"That's saying something because me and Wave never agree."

She rolled her eyes, "'Wave and _I_'."

"Are you picking a fight, Nerdy Birdy?"

"_Shut up! _I haven't been called that since high school."

"Trust me, there's worse," Tails sighed before remembering what they were originally doing. He closed his eyes, groaning when his Negative sight saw the mass of black snakes crowding around the bottom of the crane. They were on top of a crane more than two hundred meters in the air surrounded by robotic snakes. He moved towards his Gear and picked up the deactivated snake, examining it properly.

"Enlil, what is that smell?" Jet complained.

Examining the insides of the mechanical snake he started rambling about it without really noticing he was, "Looks like the typical Robotnik-designed irritating simplicity… atypical swarm-style robots with life form and heat-seeking technology… eugh, mesh between the general atomics of the predator sensor electronics…"

"Military tech?" Wave asked, bending to examine the snake.

"Mhmm, based of Guardium tech I think… or not… it's a little similar to Chun-Nan's SGR-A1 except it runs after the target like MQ-9 Reaper."

"Hooly Dooly! You dags do like to yabber, but can we 'urry up?" Marine asked, "We flew over yer key a few hundred meters ago."

"What?" Jet exclaimed. "Why didn't you stop?" He stepped forward and started shaking her shoulders which was rather dangerous considering they were more than two hundred meters in the air.

"You stupid galah, we were being chased by angry snakes!"

"I'm not a galah! I'm a hawk."

"It's an expression! Don't be a bounce," she pouted, crossing her arms. Then she looked down and shoved the cape she was holding into Jet's arms.

"I _can't _understand what you're _saying!_" the hawk threw his hands into the air walking back to the neck of the crane so he could place the cape back in his Gear compartment. "How does anyone _communicate _with you?"

"Cark it, you bloody stick-in-the-mud!" she growled, storming through Tails and Wave to meet Jet.

"Shut it, Shortie, or I will fry you up like shrimp on a barbie," Jet snapped, turning around and stepping up to Marine so that her nose nearly touched the edge of his beak**(ii)**.

"Ah, the bloke can learn!" she announced, turning around and placing her hands on her hips.

"So where is it, Ringtail?" he snarked, crossing his hand over his chest. Storm, Wave and Tails had been observing the interaction of the two curiously, but now they were more interested in Marine's answer.

"There," she pointed at a plain looking dune between two still mechanical beasts. It wasn't a particularly difficult place to reach, now that they knew what kind of guard(snake) they were dealing with. But why was Marine so down about it?

"Well then why aren't we going there?"

"Tha Key feels like it's thousands of meters underground…"

"Damn, what used to be here?" Wave demanded, turning to Tails. He simply shrugged. He'd once known, but he couldn't remember now. He'd have to look into it when he came back, but as far as he was concerned, this construction site had been here ever since he was born.

"We can't possibly get the Key today," Tails shrugged. "We can only take comfort in the fact that Eggman hasn't found it yet, but we should wait until he have a solid plan now that we know its location. You should mark the location in your maps for now."

Jet stomped and let out a frustrated crow, tearing feathers from his crown in irritation before he went over to his gear and programmed in the co-ordinates. Tails, Wave and Storm followed suit before Jet coughed, "Seriously, what _is_ that smell?"

"I can smell it too, but it isn't particularly bothersome, is it?" the fox asked, shrugging innocently. The movement caused Jet to flinch, the hawk turning to stare at the fox before his sharp gaze turned to the snake in his hand.

"Gimme that."

"Umm… okay."

He sniffed at the robotic fangs of the snake before recoiling, "There's _poison_ at the end of these."

"What?" Marine screeched, wobbling dangerously. Tails steadied her and got her to stand up; there wasn't much he could do if she decided to fall at this altitude.

"Mhmm. We had a job in some ruins at Adabat where the locals tipped their spears with this stuff. Storm, you remember, right?"

"They weren't very friendly," he admitted.

"Well, considering we were there to steal their treasure, I wasn't surprised," Wave snorted before sighing. The swallow turned to Tails, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, "Are you going to tell me how you managed to see the snakes before they hit us? Or how you can identify the tech inside the snake before you even looked inside?"

"It's complicated, I'll tell you later," he waved the issue off before addressing their current one. "First, we have to find a way to get out of the excavation site without these snakes following us."

"We can't," Wave admitted, "not now that they've locked onto our heat signature."

"But, we can't ride the way that we were on the way here, the edge of the site is too far away, and one of us can get bitten," said Jet. "This is lethal poison, you know."

"Why don't we just fl-?" Storm asked before he caught what he was saying and shut himself up when Tails and Marine gave him a look. Had… had Storm been saying what Tails thought he was? And he thought _he_ was keeping secrets.

He thought that Babylonians couldn't fly because they had been cursed thousands of years ago by their own god Enlil, sealing away their wings so that he might have the power to lock away Iblis the Destroyer… **(iii)**Well, that was what he knew about Babylon mythology anyway. But apparently…

"Can… Can you guys really fly?" he asked them. **(iv)**

"Well… _yeah,_ we're birds," Jet snorted**(v)**, obviously giving up the façade. "We were just hiding our abilities because if someone found out that we could fly, they'd steal away our Ark of the Cosmos."

"Why?"

"Because they seal away our wings," Wave sighed, pulling down the edge of her glove and allowing Tails and Marine a peek at her ruby embedded bracelet. "There are only around ten thousand Ark of the Cosmos like ours left in existence. Most of them have been lost by their owners, so they become rarer every year."

"Can we see yer wings?" Marine asked excitedly. "This could be our ticket out of here! If two of you carry the both of us, we can carry yer Gears!"

"Hey! There's an idea," Storm exclaimed happily. "Dibs on the smaller one!"

"What?" Wave glowered, "I should have Marine! I'm smaller than you."

"Yeah, but you and Prower are like, best friends, you'll be fine," Storm laughed before picking up Marine and placing her on his neck. She gave a whoop in glee, watching as Storm reverted his Gear to the compact version, taking it when she offered it to him. This was where the gravity equalisers came in handy, when the Gear was compact, if often weighed as much as a full suitcase, but now it was as light as a juice box. "You can give the Gear to Ringtail if you're going to complain that much."

They gave Marine Jet's Gear while Tails turned his attention to the birds as they removed their Arks of the Cosmos and placed the bands in their pockets, mouth gaping as he watched the transformation take place. Wave took off her jacket revealing her normal white tube top as her arm started to glow, from her shoulder blades to the tips of her fingers. The light violet started to turn brighter and brighter until he couldn't watch it anymore without hurting his eyes so he turned away for a second –apparently a second too long- because when he returned his attention back to the birds they adorned long elegant wings.

"Gods," Tails muttered in absolute shock, moving forward to skim his hands across Wave's feathers.

"Stop it! It's ticklish," she giggled, extending her wing to allow a better look. Upon better inspection, it looked like her wrist had developed an attachment to another long bone that protruded away from her hand which supported the biggest, longest plumes forming the wing tips. The web from her arms provided the base for rows and rows of tiny feathers that gradually became bigger and bigger to catch the wind so that she would not fall. They were amazing, considering so much matter had simply appeared out of absolutely nowhere. He loved the shapes, revelling at the soft velvet feel of the plumes. He knew how birds flew, but they'd never been so entrancing before.

"So how come Jettison ova there doesn't get a passenger?" Marine asked.

"Jet is the best at arial combat, considering he's a hawk and all, plus anyone he's ever carried has been in immediate danger," Wave mused, flapping her wings as if she was stretching out a sore muscle. Tails kept on staring at them, holding his chin and muttering under his breath. "Just give it up, Kitten. Every single explanation I've come up is inconclusive."

"It just doesn't make sense to me," he shook his head in bewilderment, rubbing at his eyes and looking around, trying to get a feel for where the wind was going. They only needed to get out of the excavation site, but any route out of there would mean dealing with the Egg Patrols.

"We'll deal with that later. C'mon, climb on my back." Tails did as he was told, climbing on her as if she would be giving him a piggy-back ride, which would have been really awkward if he was any taller. For once he was grateful for his short stature. He took Wave's Gear in his hands and panicked when Jet fell from the crane, dropping with an effortless grace before opening his wings and shooting up into the sky like a rocket dipping and twisting like an acrobat without the swings.

"This feels _so_ good! We haven't done this in _ages!_"

He let out a very unmanly yelp as Wave started running forward, following Storm off the edge of the crane as they started to descend like bungee jumpers without the life-saving elastic. For a split second, he was afraid that they were both going to hit the ground when Wave extended her hands and with a loud gust the wind picked up her body and sent her soaring into the air, so they were even _higher _than a measly two-hundred meters above sea-level. Wave let out a thrilled laugh and Tails opened eyes he didn't even know were closed.

_"Wow."_

She only had to beat her violet-pink wings every few minutes, the sea breeze picking up all of their slack instantly. Soon enough they were gliding and he saw Soleanna in a way he hadn't in a long time. The city was wondrous, illuminated with moonlight and lit up from within, it was moments like these he was proud to call it home. Their brief little interlude was interrupted by a small little platoon of Egg Pawns, so Tails switched into Negative vision, over riding their programs to self-destruct so that they fell out of the sky.

"You did that, didn't you?" Wave asked, sighing, disappointed, "Why didn't you tell me you were a technopath? I wish I was one."

"Why didn't you tell me you could fly?" he accused angrily. "I'd give anything to fly again. Besides, I just found I was a technopath, I haven't had the chance to tell you."

"Well… the topic of having wings didn't turn up until now."

"I suppose… they're beautiful by the way."

"Thanks…"

"I wish we could have flown together, at least once."

They shared a quiet serene moment before a ringing trill alerting them to the approach of something behind them, but by the time he turned around it was already too late to stop the grenade explosion from blasting them apart.

* * *

><p><em>Waking Up <em>by Julien-K of Lost and Found, the Shadow The Hedgehog Soundtrack

* * *

><p>When Tails came to, he was closer to the forbidden districts than he'd care to admit.<p>

The forbidden district was a small section of Soleanna that was the base of excavation leading further into the forests until they weren't in the city anymore. Its boundaries were fenced and the number of various Egg guards surrounding it doubled compared to the amount patrolling Soleanna for any suspicious wrong doings. Anyone that had tried to break inside, hadn't come out alive, except for those that were so beyond broken that they didn't _want _to keep living.

Everyone knew in what general area the secret base of operations were, but no one had been able to locate it and tell the tale as of yet. He knew that Sonic's latest plan had something to do with locating it, and that's why Tails felt so nervous about what the Freedom Fighters were planning. If they did find the base, then they would go along with the plan as soon as possible. It was the only thing holding them back.

His automatic reaction to being in this deserted (save Egg patrols) was to flee, but something in his gut was telling him to look beyond that. He should have been leaving; he was roughed up badly, but was far too numb to care. He stretched in an attempt to feel anything wrong with his body, finding nothing but bruises; he looked around, having been fallen in a small alcove very close to the edge of The Docks.

If he just snuck past some sentries, he could pretend that absolutely nothing had happened. Unfortunately these sentries were Mobians, meaning more perceptive than the normal robots placed in charge of guard duty, _also_ more prone to noise, unfortunate for him since his next step was over a particularly crunchy piece of frosted grass.

Alerted, the guards turned around and immediately started to shoot in his direction. Blinking his eyes, he slid some of the side release trigger and pushed it inwards using his technopathic abilities, making the blast from the guns rebound and harm their wielders instead. Using this distraction he sprinted past them and into the sea side district, cursing the fact that no one was around this early in the day to hear his pleas for help, or if they had heard, they could simply be ignoring him, wondering if his voice would drown out with the waves in time.

Making another left among the sandstone buildings he stopped, realising –in absolute horror- that his pleas had been heard, by the wrong people. He recognised their ring leader immediately; the boy, whose name he never received, had a brace around his leg, where Tails had stabbed him with one of his smaller screw drivers. Behind him, blocking the entrance he'd run into, were three more gansters, two Mobians (a sheep and a lizard) and another nameless human.

"Well, look who we have here."

Tails was panicking, surrounded by three people and unable to fly out of the situation, unable to run away because the alleyway was high and it hardly had anything he could use to bounce off or defend himself with, instead he decided to examine what they had on hand. Eyes turning to Negative, he saw that the only one that had a gun was the ringleader, so he quickly dispelled that by using his abilities to rearrange the revolver's mechanics and make moving the barrel incredibly hard, but with enough persuasion, the bullet would backfire. The people behind him only had metal objects in their hands, but… one of them was holding a weapon he couldn't recognise. It wasn't made of anything that he could recognise.

"I'm sorry," Tails growled at the guy, "your name eludes me."

"It isn't something you need to know," he grinned viciously. "Do you see this stupid piece of metal on my leg? I'm going to have this _forever_ thanks to you. When you stabbed that screw driver into me, you hit one of the central nerves in it."

"Well then maybe you'll think twice before taking innocent people hostage," the fox retorted as he spun around and aimed a punch for the first human, smirking when they raised their weapon hand to block the attack, prying it from them without any difficulty. Alright, so now he had one knife versus a gun, another knife, and some weapon that he could not name. The first counter-steal started the flurry of movement. The ringleader brought out his gun, but rather than shoot it, he caught Tails' arm and held him back by the elbows as the other human slugged him across the face, allowing him to choke out his own blood before hitting him again. He struggled in the hold, but this human was pretty damn strong.

"Ha, you're not the only one that was taught fighting by a GUN agent."

_Oh shit._

He had to think –this guy knew his moves, so he was going to have to be creative about the entire affair- but the pain was starting to cloud his vision, making him susceptible to clouded vision and weary thought. His neck snapped again as the force hit the side of his face like a sack full of bricks, setting off the panic receptors in their heads. He waited for the human to rear back his fist before going limp in the ring leader's hand. The clenched fist crashed into his captor's arm, causing him to loosen his grip enough for Tails to jerk free. Still kneeling in his position on the floor, the kit used his tails to sweep the lizard and human off their feet, making them land with a hideous crack onto the floor.

_"Tails!"_

_Wave!_ he realised, spinning around dramatically. She was coming from the alley side that the ringleader had previously occupied, but when he spun around again, the sheep Mobian and the ringleader were on the same side. The ringleader stole the mysterious weapon from the human's hand, holding it up closer for inspection. It was the most oddly shaped firearm he had ever seen.

"Are you o-_Tails! Behind-!_" he realised the knife had been thrown before he had the chance to deflect it with anything, aimed right at Wave's head, spinning like a pinwheel of bright, glinting steel. It imbedded itself into his right shoulder, followed by a feral snarl on his part. He tried to let the pain phase to him, but bolts of pain shot out from his side and fizzled out to the rest of his body in waves of hot shudders. The pulled the blade out and threw it back, felling the sheep when it landed in his thigh.

No, Tails didn't really pass out until he was enveloped in a bright blue light. He realised the ring of cerulean had instantly zapped whatever energy he had left when he collapsed to his knees. He hoped that Tails hadn't been fired with the thing, but she looked completely fine. The ring leader looked at him angrily, yelling at him and then the weapon in his hands before firing again, causing Tails' vision to blur. The kit gasped, wondering where all of his strength had gone all of a sudden. Another blast of blue lazer and Tails' nerve ending caught on fire again, releasing an earth-shattering scream as the pain tore him apart from the inside out. He collapsed to the floor, wondering how such a stupid-looking device could cause this much harm. It was almost impossible to see through his tears of pain, or hear past anything through the buzzing in his ears, but he could register shouting, and a blur of violet slamming the ringleader into the wall before he succumbed to the darkness and blacked out.

* * *

><p><em>Resistance<em> by Muse

* * *

><p>When he came to <em>again,<em> he was in the Black Arms, on his bed, his head in Wave's lap while her attention was stuck on the very item that had sent his nerve endings overboard. He flinched when he saw the weapon, instantly moving off Wave's legs when pain slammed into him like a fist made of cinderblock.

_"Ow."_

"Calm down, Kitten, and move slowly. You attract trouble like pirates to a big red 'x'," she sighed, soothing over his bangs and forcing him to lie down on a pillow. She examined the weapon one more time before hopping off his bed and standing up, brushing her dishevelled clothes off. She looked like she hadn't changed since the fight in the alleyway.

The thought of that pathetic fight found him with a sense of guilt and shame. He _still_ hadn't been strong enough to protect anyone, even himself. At this rate, he'd be dead by the end of the Grand Prix. He would have mentally slapped himself if it wouldn't have hurt so much. Of course! That's what everyone wanted. Damn did he feel stupid today.

Instead of wallowing in guilt, he decided to look over the weapon in Wave's hands, but even Negative vision couldn't reveal anything about it. But it had been stronger and more painful than anything Tails had ever experienced, so what the heck was it? He'd felt like _dying_ when the gun was focused on him, but he was sure Wave had been hit multiple times and she didn't seem affected at all.

He was almost scared to ask, but he did anyway, "What is it?"

"Looks like… Babylonian tech."

"Really?"

"Judging from the fact that it almost killed you, but didn't even harm me, I think so. I'm going to have to examine it a little more closely, but I can save that for later. Are you alright, Tails?" she murmured, placing the weapon down on his table and sitting by his bedside, stroking a hand through his hair.

"It depends. What did you do to the guys back in the alleyway?"

"Two of them are dead, suffering from cracked skulls and punctured organs. The ringleader and the lizard were left unconscious on the floor. I know you would have called a hospital or something, but Tails, I'm just not that kind of person, especially when I saw what he was doing to you," she stated worriedly, looking away. "Are you sure you're alright? Whatever that weapon did looked _really _painful, and your eye is starting to black up something terrible."

He gave her a 'What? Really?' look, so she moved to his bedside table and got a piece of scrap metal with a shiny, reflective surface.

"I had some aloe in my glove compartment, so I used that to go past the swelling stage, but it still looks pretty sore."

"And it makes feels pretty sore too."

"Oh Tails," she sighed, "I'm glad that you took the knife for me, because it would have hit me in the eye otherwise, I definitely would have missed it, but I wish you didn't have to keep on getting hurt because of me."

"I'm taking one for the team," he joked, but she didn't seem amused by it at all.

"I feel like you've endured more than you should have in three months than a teen like you should have experienced in an entire life time," she admitted shrugging. "I don't think it's really fair."

"Life's not fair," he replied grabbing the shiny metal for himself and examining the purpling bruises around his eyes. Dammit, more wounds, as if his face wasn't marred enough with those stupid scars. "Can I have a look at that thing?"

"No way! You could get hurt, so heal up so that you can look at it later," she replied, running her hands through his bangs one more time before getting up and looking outside his door, sneaking out just as Sonic made his way in.

There was a long awkward silence before Tails moved to get out of bed, slipping into the sofa right next to it, "I believe this is the part where you confess your gay love for me."

"_Someone's_ been spending too much time with Heartnet."

"How would you know? You haven't been here at _all_ lately," Tails defended, immediately going for the comment that would hurt the most.

Sonic had the decency to look guilty about it, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "I know what you're thinking, you're expecting another lecture right?"

"Yes," he stated bluntly.

"Listen, Buddy, you've grown up a Hell of a lot more in these three months, than I have in eighteen years, so I reckon you've got some right to make your own decisions," Sonic admitted, surprising Tails. The fox could tell this because Sonic laughed at his expression, "And I realised last time we had that argument that I can't change your decision, no matter how hard I try. You're smarter, more logical and you're slowly getting stronger than me, so I am hard pressed to go head to head with you when you've got your heart set on something like this."

"Really?" Tails asked in disbelief.

"Really," Sonic nodded. "So even though I am very worried about you and your life style choices, and there may or may not be a new shipment of aloe vera coming over _just_ for you, I'm not gonna butt in because-hey, I'm one of those cool big brothers right?"

"Tch," Tails made a little unimpressed sound before snorting at Sonic's mock-shock expression, trying to cover up how much laughing hurt. "Sometimes…"

"I am _begging_ you though to learn a method to defend yourself other than GUN fighting technique. I've fought Shadow thousands of times, and it's only effective when you're as strong and creative as him. I'm sorry, Bud, but you lack the military training to be able to pull this style off. Keep training though, you're getting better."

"What do you suggest then?"

"See if any of the Babylon Rogues will accommodate a little more time to train with you, I know they're leaving soon, but their style of fighting is more defense orientated than GUN's."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

"Actually, I was just going over to see them now, did you want to come with me?" he asked, "If you're not too battered that is. Say," Sonic smiled slyly, "how did you get those injuries in the first place Tails?"

"Why, falling down the stairs, of course."

"Heartnet is right, you are the worst liar," Sonic laughed, rolling his eyes before he was abruptly hit in the face with a pillow.

* * *

><p><em>J'arrive Pas <em>by Zaz

* * *

><p>Caleb and Silver accompanied Tails and Sonic to the Freedom Fighter's HQ where they met the Babylon Rogues and the members of the FF in charge of their newest mission to locate Eggman's hidden base, the one with the plans he must obviously hide behind The Grand Prix. Silver had come along to deliver a painting to them, while Caleb was coming along to speak to one of their members. Tails wondered what connection he might have had to any of their members.<p>

"Tails!" Sally tried to sweep him into a hug like how she used to when he was way smaller, but she couldn't carry him as long as she used to, an obvious testament to how much he'd grown. "I haven't seen you in forever! Hey guys! Tails is here!"

Each of the original Freedom Fighter's greeted him in turn, as well as some that were a little harder to recognise. He was met with gracious waves and warm hello's before everyone turned back to their work. He moved over to the blue prints and six large white boards filled with intricate plans. The lieutenants were each crowded around one section of the plan, how they were going to get in, security enabling, types of guards they could avoid, ecetera, but Tails knew they were missing one major component.

They didn't know where the base was.

"How are you guys going to break into a base with no definite location?" he asked Rotor, who had been fussing over the defense systems.

"Well, apparently GUN's got a lead on someone that can help us locate where it is."

"Who is it?"

"Someone called Selina Heartnet."

_"Excuse me,"_ Caleb butted in between them, pressing a claw to Rotor's forehead, "but how is my _dead_ mother supposed to help in this investigation?"

"Your Selina's son?" Sally asked in surprise.

"The lead's _dead?_" Rotor asked, but he went ignored.

"That's right, Princess. We met when my mother was commissioned to paint a picture of your family. You can't remember? I got purple paint into your hair that day."

"Oh my goodness, I do! But… you had white fur then, and your name wasn't Caleb."

"Gotta keep my identity secret somehow," he shrugged, looking at his arm. "But, that's beside the point, how's my mom supposed to help you?"

"We're not sure yet," Rotor admitted, "someone called Leilani Cesario is in charge of that investigation. You're going to want to ask her. If you ask me, she looks a bit like the Cérri murderer from the Black Adve-"

"Rotor, shut up!" Nicole growled, clamping her hand over the walrus's mouth. "You know we're not allowed to speak about that stuff."

"Yeah, but that's when Egg Pawns could hear that."

"You shouldn't speak about it anyway," Caleb's voice dropped an octave, a low sound in his throat resonating, "I don't think the GUN agent would appreciate being called a murderer." He patted Tails' shoulder before going off to a different part of the room.

"Did anyone else just feel like shitting their pants?"

"It was probably just you," Tails snorted, reminded himself to scold Caleb for using his powers for such mean purposes. It was so like him though. "So what are the Babylon Rogues doing in your supposed plan?"

"Causing a distraction of course. Egg sentries stay where they are, but they're hard to make, so we can assume Eggman doesn't have a lot of those, and we can hope there are a lot of pawns so they'll take the bait and follow the Rogues if they decide to set the hallways on fire or something."

"Really?"

"Yeah, for that they need to know where all the alarms, escape routes, robot stashes and other things are."

"Where did you guys get this information?"

"One of Heartnet's contacts."

"Ah, I see," he nodded before his stomach gave an embarrassingly loud rumble. Rotor laughed at him. "I didn't even realise I was hungry."

"Puberty will do that to you, go on, I think they're serving dinner already."

Once Tails received his food, he dumped it on the table where Bunnie, Antoine, Caleb were sitting already. It looked like they were already in an engaging conversation.

"So, Leilani has been having investigations on my mother for _how_ long now?"

"Ever since zee Grand Prix began, mon ami," Antoine explained, wincing at the expression Caleb pulled, which was a mix between hurt and fury.

"How long have they been sending pictures by her here?" he asked, pointing to the package that Silver had been handling.

"For about three weeks, Darlin'. C'mon Hun, what's this fuss about?"

"I guess… it's a rather large secret she's been keeping from me," Caleb shrugged, seemingly calmed after finding out this information. "So Bunnie, how is your twin sister?"

Bunnie's green eyes widened and she leant looked down with an expression of sadness, "You haven't heard, have ya? Ah'm sorry, Cal, but the treatment didn't work on poor ol' Buns. I tol' her not ta listen to that shady doc, but she was desperate for anything. She passed away jus' a few days ago."

Tails examined Caleb's expression, shocked at what he saw. The brown fox was shaking, claws digging into the wood of the table, while his eyes remained wide and his breath came out in staggers. "Caleb are you-?"

"No… it can't be."

"Ah'm sorry, Hunny" Bunnie shrugged. Tails knew that Bunnie had never really been that close to her sister, but it seemed Buns had shared a bond with Caleb so much deeper than her, judging by the way that he was acting now.

_"No!"_ he shouted, gaining the attention of several people surrounding their table. He pushed back from the desk, doing it so violently that he knocked over their drinks, water, wine and other beverages spilled onto the floor. "This _can't_ be!"

"Caleb, calm down!" Silver placed his hand on the fox's shoulder, but he just batted it away.

"How can she be _dead? _That was her last hope, and he was so _sure!_ He was so sure…" he rambled, hands tangling in his black locks as he paced and mumbled hysterically.

"Calm down and-" Tails began, but he was interrupted.

"_HOW_ CAN I?" he screamed, and for the first time, Tails realised that Caleb was crying, but he was so distraught he couldn't even tell it was happening. He didn't care how many people were staring at him because it just didn't matter anymore. "THERE IS NO _HOPE_ LEFT!"

_{I cannot pretend to be true,  
>When dark thoughts run through my heart.<br>Freeze me, give way to astonishment, to lack of feelings,  
>Steal my desire to offer my joy.<br>Give me fear of an emptiness without which,  
>The shine goes away.} <em>**(vi)**

"What do you mean? Calm down so that you can explain-"

"What's the point?" Caleb moaned like he was in absolute agony. "There is none. All that work for _nothing…_"

There was a crowd surrounding him now, watching his breakdown, watching his friend sobbing as his body betrayed him and crumpled to the ground. This was worse than when Caleb told them who his father was, worse than the time Arielle had attacked his phone, this was the look of a man who had been broken beyond recognition, tearing out his hair with frustration and anguish that was starting to leak out of Caleb and affect all of those people around him. But Tails still didn't understand what the problem was.

"C'mon Cal. Let's go and recover some place more private."

"There will _be_ no recovering…"

Tails led them to the unused medical wing, where he had spent many a day during the Black Advent after the Crimson Night, where Caleb sat on a gurney and continued trying to wipe the tears from his face, obscured by the curtain of obsidian hair.

_{I try not to cry over the world that seems murderous to me,  
>The world and its ego that charm with lies.<br>I try to convince myself and to hope that the world may change,  
>That our conditioned minds wake up and take a chance on exodus.<br>Exodus of our lethargy towards tangible actions,  
>That each link may count and feel responsible,<br>For this world of beauty that perished before it lit beneath our eyes.  
>For those children without bread and those others who stuff themselves,<br>For those people in power who allow the earth to die,  
>Who have made it sick and who bruised our flesh.}<em>

"Is there anything that we can do?" Tails asked, feeling helpless.

"I'm sorry," he apologised hysterically, "that was really pathetic of me."

"Did you want to tell us what was up?" Silver murmured, placing a hand on Caleb's shoulder.

"No. The… the less you know, the better. Just… leave me alone for a bit."

The both got up and stopped at the door.

"Thanks anyway…"

_{Unhealthy consumption, all these needs which we create,  
>And this drama that is played every day under our noses.<br>Urgency lessened by phoney speeches,  
>That we approve with a shrug of our shoulders like good sheep.}<em>

"Are you sure…?" Tails asked, watching Caleb's watery eyes flicking to the shadows in the room.

"You know, you two are some of the best friends I've ever made," he offered them a nervous smile, but for some reason it just made Tails more anxious. Silver recognised this, and must have felt it too.

"Why are you speaking like that?" Silver demanded.

"Like what?" he feigned innocence.

...

"Like you're dying…"

There was a pause that was far too long before he said, "N-No... it's just been a while since anyone's shown they actually cared about what happened to me."

They both narrowed their eyes at him before sighing, realising he wasn't about to give up any information, "Alright, well tell us when you're better so that we can go back home, okay?"

"Okay."

When they were gone, Caleb closed his eyes, watching as the shadows danced, "Are you happy now?"

As one, they whispered back in the voice of someone he had once loved so much, _"Give me my heart, and then we can finally be together."_

"I can never love you," he whispered, "not after what you have done to me."

The shadows hissed, attacking the entirety of Freedom HQ, unleashing a barrage of screams with a high pitched note that caused bright red blood to leak from everyone's ears, everyone except Caleb who was deaf to the siren's fury.

_"I will __**make**__ you love me."_

_{I cannot do anything other than melt inside.}_

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

And that entire scene was one big _massive_ clue as to what Caleb's big secret is. Cookies to whoever figures it out. There might even be a request picture in it for you.

**(i)** Jet's voice in the first and second _Riders_ game was absolute _torture._ I love Jason Griffith, but _seriously? _Did he have a cold or something?

**(ii)** Is it just me or is Jet and Marine sounding really attractive right now? Maybe I'm just high. They're both bossy, annoying, attention-seekers!

**(iii)** Wave spoke about Babylon Mythology in Chapter 35: As Much As You Secretly Mean To Me, under the section _Assassin's Creed: Revelations Theme_ by Lorne Balfe.

**(iv)** See Chapter 11: Just Not Worth It Anymore, under the section _Hero_ by Skillet where each of the birds demonstrated the flight and wing transformation in a fight against Metal Sonic.

**(v)** See _It's a Technician Thing_, Chapter 46: flight for more elaborate theories on Babylon flight.

**(vi)** There are brackets around the lyrics of _J'arrive Pas _by Zaz, because the song is actually in French and this is the English translation. This song is also one of _Anthem of Our Dying Day_'s signatures.

**Review~**

**ღ**


	55. Singing For You Through The Night

**domi|note**

Thanks to **LordCooler**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **I3lackIyc Tha Wolf**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Stonefaced610**, **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **DontCrossTheFox **and **Undead009** for reviewing the last chapter.

**Fanfiction** has been very busy as of late, hasn't it? First this image viewer thing and now the top of any fanfic I'm reading looks weird. I'm still getting over the blue review button.

**Warning!~ **Heavily implied slash in this chapter.

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. ~Lord Byron<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Fifty Five<br>_.  
>"To lie, I shall be singing for you through the night (to lie). I shall be turning on the broken light (to lie). So that we can pierce through the night sky. To lie, (to lie)."<br>_...  
>The Promise (Serah's Theme) <em>by Masashi Hamauzu

* * *

><p>It had been two days since Caleb's mental breakdown at the Freedom Fighter Headquarters and since then, he'd been splitting his time between work, Leilani's home and New Town's Orphanage. His behaviour coaxed more worried reactions out of his friends than his reassurances whenever he tried to tell them he was fine. Tails could see it in his eyes, something had gone <em>terribly<em> wrong and he refused to tell anyone from Black Arms about it. The fox kit decided to leave the dilemma alone, because really, he couldn't focus on it right now.

Tonight was the last night he could ever spend with Wave. Tomorrow, she was going to lose on purpose, and be kicked out of the competition, so that Storm and Wave could focus on the mission to infiltrate Eggman's base. They still hadn't found the lead to the coordinates for it yet, so the pressure on the GUN team to find it was steadily increasing. Something bad was going to happen at the end of the cup, and they needed to be ready for it.

He closed down shop, pulling out a pamphlet for Twinkle Park, Soleanna branch. The amusement park was located in the Carnivale district, and it was where he and Wave were heading tonight. They needed to have some real fun before she…

No, he didn't even want to _think_ about it.

As he placed the pamphlet back into his jeans, he shoved those dreary thoughts into the back of his mind. He didn't need to ruin his first official-but-not-really-kinda date with Wave on what would be their last night togeth-

_Dammit! I just told myself I wouldn't think like that!_

It was chilly, because summer was almost over and vacation would finish up in less than two weeks, so he was wearing a long sleeved shirt under a red-checked flannel. He was contemplating bringing a beanie or a hat when Wave made herself known. His first reaction was to choke on his own tongue, because he couldn't even recognise her as Wave really. She was wearing a _skirt._ In all the time he'd known her, she'd never worn a _skirt._ And _damn_ she had legs up to there. It was a flouncy thing, with a pleated red chequered pattern he'd seen in private school's uniforms, but it looked a little more punk-styled with black lace underneath and overlapping chains over it. She was wearing one of her ripped black tank-top decorated with a design he'd never seen in the stores before, which didn't entirely manage to cover her midriff, which he was not complaining about. She finished the outfit off with low-heeled ankle boots and a short cut, long-sleeved white cardigan.

"Wave, you look amazing," he stated in awe, making her smile serenely.

"Thanks! I'd compliment you on your outfit too, even though it's what you usually wear, if I didn't have a fetish for you bent over the exhaust covered in oil," her sultry voice fluttered over one of his ears, making him blush. She was just joking, but she was starting to use that air that he'd experienced around Rouge before. He hoped Wave didn't use that tone of voice often, or other guys would fall for her like a pin dropped.

"You're ridiculous," he spluttered leading her outside of the garage.

"So how are we getting there?"

"We can walk; the Carnivale district isn't that far from here. One of the reason that you never see the high class New Town people there are because it kind of merges into Crisis, meaning one half is fun and games, the other is drugs behind booths and stalls. I wish I were stereotyping, but I'm not," he explained, before remembering what had happened last time he'd been walking around Soleanna at night time. He did have Wave with him, and he'd been training with Storm whenever he could, plus he'd been training his NV (Negative Vision), but he knew it still wasn't safe. "If you don't feel comfortable, we could take the Gears."

"I'm fine," she assured, "we should just take the public routes, like the train station."

"Good idea, the nearest one is two blocks away, right under Lethal Highway."

She rolled her eyes, "Is that seriously its name?"

"No, of course not," he laughed, merrily. "It's just like Crisis City, but it's been called Lethal for so long because there's been so many accident's on it, but it's the most used route to get around the city. Sonic's on it every day."

"What was its original name?

"Just Cross-City Highway. It was unofficially renamed Lethal Highway after the Crimson Night. Before that, there were a lot of reports of stolen motorcycles**(i)**. That was before we found out the aliens had invaded."

They were silent for a little while before a particular building got his attention, and, wanting a little conversation starter at this point, he jumped on it. "That's Caleb's old apartment building," he said, pointed at the run down slab of brick. He smiled fondly, remembering his first meeting with the fox. He seemed so different now, so tired and broken instead of the spunky trouble-maker he had been back then. It had only been a few months. How could anyone change that much?

"Eww, really?" she asked, examining the shoddy architecture.

"Yeah. Could you believe it? He didn't want to leave, and the only reason he did was because he didn't have the money to pay rent anymore."

"Why?" she asked him, making Tails look down guiltily when he remembered.

"I kind of _accidentally_ pushed him, making his savings drop into a vat of tar." This story proved very entertaining, "He also called me an axe murderer the first time we met."

"That sounds like him," she said with a great deal of amusement before her eyes dropped. "Tails, do you know what happened to him?"

"Normally I'm not that pushy, but he seemed really distressed about it," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders, "I asked him about it yesterday and surprisingly enough, _Shadow_ was the one defending him, telling me to leave him alone." _I guess he'd rather tell Shadow than me. A bit insulting considering he said that Silver and I were some of his best friends._ He wasn't even that friendly with Shadow and the black hedgehog _still_ knew more about what was happening than he did. Tails was sick of being left out of the loop, but he didn't want to push it any further.

"Did you want to talk about it?" she asked him.

"In truth," he sighed, "I didn't want to speak about any of my friends. Wave, everything's falling apart. Knuckles, Sonic, Shadow are all distancing themselves from home. I can't even find Silver or Blaze anymore, and Amy won't speak to me. Caleb does, but he's always stuck in his own problems, and _gods_ does he have a lot of them. Apart from the time I spend with you and Storm, I'm by myself, and I never realised how lonely I could get."

"Oh Tails," she murmured, slipping an arm around his waist and pulling him closer as they walked, "I'm sure it will get better. I mean, I haven't been around… what have these blow ups been about?"

"Well, the first one started with Sonic and I right after I got attacked, following the first Grand Prix race. And then we started splitting apart after Heartnet was accused of being a rapist-murderer during The Aloe Heist. Sonic and Caleb had a huge row about it, do you remember? He ripped out Jet's feathers."

"Yes," she lifted her eyes to the star-speckled sky, "he deserved it, he was being a prick again."

"And after that, Silver confessed to Blaze, making everything awkward. Then we fought, one of the worst experiences of my life, by the way, and then Silver and Blaze fought. That was followed immediately by Shadow, Rouge, Amy and Sonic fighting, then Sonic and Knuckles started fighting, then you told me you were leaving. Then I fought Amy, so now she won't speak to me. Then Marine and Silver start fighting, over what I have no idea. And now Caleb's having mental breakdowns he feels more comfortable telling Shadow about, but not me or Silver."

"Poor baby," she murmured, pressing her cheek to the top of his head, bending one of his ears at an uncomfortable angle. "I have _no_ idea how you handle so much pressure. How old are you again?"

"'M fourteen."

"Kids like you should be… Uh damn, what was I doing at your age?"

"Doing drugs," he suggested with a laugh.

"I did nothing beyond aloe vera," she teased, poking his cheek. They were on a main street now, and Twinkle Park was just up ahead. "You should be, you should be going to amusement parks and… and hanging out with people your _own_ age," she laughed, "and… and getting drunk on slushies!"

"What?" he asked, bemused as he looked at her with confusion.

"_Yes!_ That is perfect! Let's get slushies. And speak about something non-depressing, like…"

"Like what?" he asked, as he got out his money to pay for admission. The elderly lady sitting in the booth waved off the payment. The fox and the swallow looked at her in confusion before she laughed. It was a homely, breathy laugh.

"Couple's get in free, Sweetheart."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," he chuckled, grabbing Wave's hand and leading her inside.

"You just didn't want to pay admission," she accused good-naturedly, tugging on his hand and intertwining their fingers. He didn't even realise what she'd done until they were in the middle of the courtyard, the centre of the theme park that would branch off towards the different sections. This part of it was decorated classically, built in a style similar to the aging architecture of Castle Town except painted with brighter colours and littered with wreathes of flowers. People were being driven around here with little trains and carts drawn by non-Mobian horses.

"Did you want something to eat?"

"Yeah, let's get something we can eat on the go."

After getting some food, they ventured into the more quiet part of the amusement park, a section labelled 'Hanging Gardens', where pairs acted like love-sick idiots or had make-out sessions behind the bushes. The only reason he'd come here was because it was the only place you didn't need to scream to be heard.

"So, what have you done to your gear in preparation for the next race?"

"I've modified Yellow Tail with its first design, compensating the gravity unit on the inside for a bigger air tank, so I can get around the tight turns faster and have more chances for turbo boosts. Do you remember the turning system before the gravity era?"

"Not well, I've become so reliant on gravity control that I never think about it anymore."

"Maybe that will become a disadvantage then…" he murmured, suddenly doubting his decision. Maybe he would have enough time to change it back once they got home. But it's not like he _wanted_ to go back now. This was their… Dammit, he was thinking _those _thoughts again.

"Hey, don't doubt yourself just because I'm not doing it. You're skilled enough and smart enough to make your own decisions."

"Sorry," he replied with a goofy smile, scratching the back of his head, "how do you expect me not to ask for your approval? You've been my hero for years."

"What?" she exclaimed, eyes widening in shock as she gulped down her food. "This is the first time I'm hearing this, Tails."

"Are you kidding? You've been dubbed the best Extreme Gear technician in the _world_, in a city that used to worship it. Of course I look up to you, I have ever since I started working with Extreme Gear."

"And…" she laughed nervously, "how long has that been again?"

"I don't know… since I was seven I think?"

"Enlil," she swore, placing her burrito in her lap and cradling Tails' head in her arms, "I am _so_ sorry!"

"Sorry for what?" there he was, smooshed up against her cleavage again. Not that he… y'know, _minded_ or anything.

Her voice was filled with shock and guilt, "When I first came here, I was _such_ a bitch to you." He opened his mouth, "Don't even _try_ to deny it, Kitty, I insulted your Gear skills, your life style," he couldn't help chuckling about the last one, "your height."

"I'm not going to deny any of that."

"Oh my god, I feel so terrible knowing you looked up to me and I treated you like that. Geez, how can I make it up to you?"

The first thing that popped into Tails' head was to ask her to stay- stay with _him_ to be more precise, but he knew how that would go down. Not only would it ruin the mood, but it would make her feel even worse. He sighed and forced on a smile for her sake, "Buy me a slushie."

"What? Seriously? That's it?" she looked like she was in disbelief. "Tails, normal kids would have asked for something expensive, or… for me to stay or something."

Oh great, _she_ brought it up. Well, there was no avoiding it now.

"Wave, spoilt kids in Crisis City get beaten up and shot," he replied like it was the most natural thing in the world which just made her cling on harder. "I'll take what I can get."

"That makes it worse. You have so much talent, yet you're stuck in this cesspool," she pressed her cheek to the top of his head, "I wish I could take you out of here."

"I wish I could go," he admitted, "but I've got a duty to my family too."

They were engulfed in silence for a long time, finishing off their food quietly. When she swallowed down her last bite and threw the rubbish in a nearby bin, she gave him a look of confliction, ice eyes softening with sadness and confliction, "Listen Tails, I am going to be honest with you. I know we were supposed to be spending the last day doing fun stuff, but I can't keep my head out of business. I'd rather just ride Extreme Gear around Soleanna for a few hours."

"Thank Solaris, because I couldn't stop thinking about it either. C'mon, let's head back and get them."

* * *

><p>"You do know the number of Egg Patrols tonight doubles, right?" she said, lazily dropping his goggles on his head while he fetched the Gears out of their chargers. She slipped on her favourite orange tinted visors, patting down her recently changed jeans.<p>

"When has that ever stopped you before?" he joked, activating his newly modified Gear. She had to admit, it did look impressive. It had an intricate new grey and red panelling with accents of black underneath the board. It still retailed the mostly yellow colour scheme, and the sleek design of the Zero Gravity range, but its overall bulk and balance was compromised by the new thruster system he'd enabled. Oh well, she was sure the larger air tank and his growing skill would make up for that anyway.

Tails snapped his goggles over his bangs as she activated her Gear, stepping onto it lazily. She'd also prepared her Gear, but not for racing; for long endurance chases and easy turns so that when they were run out of Soleanna she'd be able to escape easier.

They were out and zooming through the streets within seconds, simply enjoying cutting through the wind at break-neck speeds, riding side by side instead of following one another, turning in sync when they encountered a cross road. "So, where are we going?"

"I don't know, where did you want to go?"

"Hmm…" she thought, mentally sifting through her knowledge about Solean landscape, "I know I'm not much for Twinkle Park, but Sonic mentioned a particularly interesting location the other day."

"Aquarium Park**(iii)** is closed," Tails stated bluntly.

"And do you know why?"

"Because one of the emeralds has been located there, but it's being protected by ancient ruins left behind by the… by the…"

"Babylonians!" she cried in excitement, curving down a long stretch of highway, oddly with few cars travelling along it tonight. "Yes, I did my research. This is one of the emeralds that Knuckles' family was protecting, but since it's underwater, they can't do much about keeping it safer, but that's alright, because those left behind to monitor Babylon Garden built a shrine around it."

"How?" he asked in astonishment.

"I have no idea, but it's rumoured the only people that know how to get inside need to be able to read Babylonian. And guess who majored in Ancient Languages in high school?" she boasted, making him roll his eyes as they swiftly turned another corner.

"And you want to see if you can find it?" he asked her.

"Should be easy enough, right? Lookie!" Wave was carrying around a little satchel that Tails hadn't noticed before, noticing that she harboured two bright glowing necklaces. "They're cool right? It's an air necklace; I bought it from the Black Market."

"You had this all planned didn't you?"

"Pretty much, so, what do you say? Up for an adventure?"

* * *

><p><em>Tick Tack<em> by U-KISS

* * *

><p>She'd broken into the entry of the Aquarium rather easily, and he was a little worried about the fact that he didn't feel guilty in the slightest about breaking and entering.<p>

He'd been to Aquarium Park many times when he was smaller, but he didn't know until two years ago that one of the chaos emeralds reside in there. The thing was, during the Crimson Night, it had been taken out and _used_ by the Fallen Angel, because the Seraph had managed to acquire _all_ seven of them before they were scattered around Soleanna. This led Tails to assume that if the Fallen Angel had the power to take the emerald from a shrine made by the Babylonians, than he must have been Babylonian as well. Right? It made sense.

Now, apart from being an underwater theme park that has been closed for over three years, it was also once a race track, and Tails supposed the best route to locating the emerald was to race along the track.

"Now, Black Arms and Babylonian mutants are naturally drawn to the signature of the chaos emeralds."

"So, when we feel it's at its strongest, we stop, yeah?" she affirmed, patting his forehead before hitting her thrusters and leaving him behind in a power-packed puff of smoke. Shocked, it took him more than five seconds to recover and hit his own boost, engine roaring as they cut past the starting line. They were immediately greeted with a huge gust of air, that sent them plummeting into a tube of glass surrounded by the Solean ocean. Fishes, kelp and machinery moved in a colourful blur before he saw the end of the chute. Bending his knees and bringing his board closer to his body, he readied himself for the impact of the next curve.

Wave slid against the curve effortlessly, the speed and skill carving Tails a beautiful curve of turbulence. He was propelled forward by what was left behind of her force, white blurs flying past his vision with increasing velocity. He felt the weight of gravity shift as the see through tube made a loop de loop and the force brought him back down where a long stretch of track allowed him to turbo boost three times in an attempt to catch up to her. She was still a few more kilometres, ahead of him by that time.

Spying a speed boost and a few accelerator rings, he slammed his foot down on the air accumulator, slowing down bit by bit as the pressure built up. With a jolt, he let it go and rocketed into the air with his momentum on the back of the Extreme Gear, resulting in the smoothest quadruple backflip he'd ever performed. When he landed, the holographic 'S' rank signified he'd received the highest trick grade for his performance, and a huge grin threatened to split his grin in half. He was already performing better than in any of the official races he'd participated in.

He realised that Wave was only a few hundred meters in front of him now, and when she turned around she was surprised to see him so close, but she didn't admit it out loud, "Fallen asleep back there, Tails?"

"You wish!"

They encountered several fast turns, each pulled off stupendously because Tails wasn't worried about losing. He was having a lot of fun, and slowly catching up to Wave in the process. The sides of the track were oriental styled, like in the pictures and movies he had seen based of Chun-Nan, with a mostly red design that surprisingly enough, didn't clash with the blue of the atmosphere. No, it was complemented with different colours from paper lanterns and colourful designs that made the entire place seem livelier. He wished that the park was still open sometimes.

It was only when they reached a large air pocket that Wave started to slow down, but Tails didn't see the action until he felt that spine-tingling chill of energy he felt whenever he was home. It was odd. He didn't notice it because it felt so familiar, but he'd been _lacking_ that feeling as of late. It didn't even occur to him to _stop_ until Wave was right in front of him.

_"WATCH OUT!"_

Wave turned around, watching with rapidly widening eyes as Tails tried to stop, but stumbled off his board instead, right into her. They were a rolling yellow-violet blur until they came to a stop with a synchronised 'Ompf'. He didn't even have the time to feel embarrassed about the entire situation, she was already laughing into his shoulder. She'd landed on top of him, hips straddling one of his legs, but she didn't feel embarrassed at all. She was happy, if the giggling into his shoulder was any indication.

When he was over his initial mortification, he joined her in the temporary giggle-fit, feeling lighter than air at the moment. He hadn't felt this happy in a long time. Eventually, she rolled of him and pounced back up, grabbing his hand and pulling him up too so that they could look at the indoor pool. Well, maybe indoor pool wasn't the right description, because this just happened to be an intentional hole in the track that led to the Solean ocean.

"Man, you are hopeless, Kitty."

"I couldn't help it; _you're_ the one that stopped in the middle of the track."

"And you probably know why," she said, pointing towards the ocean, "you felt it too, right?"

"I did."

He was already taking off his sneakers and pants so that he could go swimming, but Wave was hesitant. She kicked of her sneakers, but she was still looking at the water like it was going to bite her. He gently placed his hand on her shoulder and she slowly turned her head. "Hey, are you okay?"

"'M fine…" she sighed, "It's just… when I was fourteen, Jet and I were having a fight and I wanted to prove to him that I could recover treasure all by myself. It was an underground temple, and I must have triggered some trap because it started caving in and filling itself up. If Storm and Jet hadn't come in after me, I could have died."

"That sounds scary," he murmured, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. He was about to offer an alternative: he could go down and retrieve it by himself, but she was the one that suggested this, and he bet his left tail that she'd rather overcome her fear. "But you don't have to worry, because I'll be with you this time."

She looked at him with an emotion he couldn't fully recognise and didn't have the time to, because when he blinked, the expression was gone. Instead, apprehension and fear was displayed in her rigid muscles as she threw off her bandana, gripped his hand and pulled him into the water. They applied their air necklaces and a gentle rush of warm filled his veins. He breathed out bubbles, but there was always more air in his lungs.

They spent a lot of time near the ocean floor, observing the life around them as they tried to pinpoint the location of the chaos emerald. They didn't have to go far because the energy signature was getting stronger, and it was coming from a large gorge underneath the entirety of Aquarium Park.

There was a glowing from inside the cavern once they reached the side, and Tails was thinking about whatever device he had on him that made some kind of light. He turned to Wave, who simply shrugged before she gripped his shoulder, eyes widening in shock as she pointed to his chest. He looked down and noticed that she was pointing at the blue opal necklace his mother had given him. It was _glowing._

_Why is it glowing?_ he thought, confused as to why a perfectly normal gem stone would glow like his did. It wasn't _magic_ was it?

With the help of the glowing blue jewel, they managed to locate the shrine, taking a few moments to observe the ancient Babylonian script surrounding it, wishing that he could read it. Wave was immersed in the words, trailing a finger along the stone as she read before pulling Tails closer so that his amulet would provide the glow she needed to read. She stopped for a second on one particular word and gasped, looking like she was choking on her tongue. He wished they could speak, but the sound didn't travel clear enough.

Instead, she shook his shoulders briefly before swimming up to the chaos emerald's altar. It was a very light cyan colour, almost the colour of his eyes. The one that Knuckles had lent him before had been light violet. Rumours stated that the Fallen Angel had favoured the green emerald. He could feel it pulsating with energy, invigorating him. He just couldn't believe that it was that easy. He pressed his hand to the altar of the emerald and a visible shock went through him, fraying his nerves from the inside out as he spasmed with pain.

Wave held him for a second as he regained his wits. He twitched occasionally, but the pain faded away relatively quickly. When she touched the altar experimentally, she was fine. It must have been some kind of Babylonian tech again. He touched the emerald once it was in Wave's hand and he felt totally fine. He led them both back to the surface, slower this time because of their precious cargo.

He climbed up and shook out his fur, glad to finally be out of the water.

"I can't believe it was that easy," she laughed, holding the emerald to better examine it. Apart from the fact that it was pulsating energy, and was abnormally huge and glowy, it didn't look any different from normal jewels.

"Well, it wouldn't have been easy for anyone else," Tails admitted, remembering the shock he received when he touched the altar. "It's in your blood."

"But apparently, I'm not the first one to have taken it from the altar," she shook her head, "apparently, the Fallen Angel took it out and put it back." She clicked her fingers then, looking at Tails with wide eyes. "That Babylonian altar had writing on it! Did you know what it said?"

"What?"

"It was predicting the coming of the Crimson Night!"

Tails almost choked on his tongue in shock, "WHAT?"

"Yeah! And it also predicted the rise of Eggman, and how he'd be taken down by the ties to his past."

"Really?" Well, normally he didn't give Sonic much credit, but he had to this time.

"Mhmm. It also said a bit about Black Wings and the Fallen Angel, as well as a huge war that apparently is going to happen really soon."

"This is… it's too much to process now." Tails closed his eyes and shook his head. "Let's go back to the garage and tell everyone else in the morning."

* * *

><p><em>Return The Favour <em>by All Time Low & _Kiss Me Again feat. Alex Gaskarth _by We Are The In Crowd

* * *

><p>GUN Headquarters tonight was buzzing as it usually did whenever something huge was about to happen. Precautions were being placed and information was being analysed in an attempt to ready themselves to whatever could happen in the fourth race of the Soleanna Grand Prix. Caleb had analysed it over and over, knowing Shadow, Knuckles, Tails, Jet, Wave and Storm were being subjected to heavy fire in the wake of this battle disguised as a competition.<p>

With his various connections, he's also managed to find other worrying competitors in the next race, some he already knew about; Scourge the Hedgehog, Fiona Fox, who were mostly likely dropping out after the next round. There was a representative from each of the four houses, the assassins who might have been in charge of taking his friend's lives. Word had spread that Predator Hawk had healed up and was ready for the next round as a representative for something far more sinister than the Destructix, and Bean the Dynamite had appeared once again to stand for Mammoth Mogul, his most recent employer. On the plus side, Sally Acorn had managed to make it to the finals as well, and she had a large fan base as it was. There were a few others that still needed more investigation, like the rumoured agent of the Cult of Argus, and the representative from Eggman himself, entering on a wild card entry to replace contestants that died in the Chaos Blast explosion.

There were different members of GUN all over Soleanna tonight; Ash and a few of the best operatives were helping the Freedom Fighter's hacking through Eggman's defences and controls of the Egg Dome. There were agents surveying Argus masses, Solaris churches, Mogul casinos, even helping in dispatching shady dealings and missions by the Four Houses, which mainly involved ruining assassinations that were taking advantage of the pre-race hype.

He'd come over to GUN Headquarters because no one was in the Black Arms and Leilani was on a mission, and being alone, especially in his current mental state was bordering on suicidal. Silence was deafening, besides, Mytho had been asking him to come around for the last few days but Caleb had gotten tired of answering to his booty calls.

Shadow and Rouge were here tonight, looking over information regarding Eggman's new stash of Babylonian weapons and the incoming reports of certain _avian_ murderers. They had originally been fighting, just like the rest of Black Arms, but some carefully placed emotional blackmail and some logical reason on Caleb's part had brought them back together. Rouge was just trying to protect Shadow, because even though he was physically strong, he was just as emotionally vulnerable as many other people. Plus, Shadow saw her in a different light now, because he didn't know her as well as he should have, due to some missing memories, and it would be pointless to drudge up an old relationship- even if that one had involved sex.

He was given nothing to do but wander around while waiting for his friend to return. He looked over Rouge's shoulder, which was hunched over some recent newspapers and reports made by GUN agents in Central City, Station Square and Metropolis. They were sitting near Chris, who was fiddling typing on the major computer helping Shadow and Rouge with their research project.

"What are you working on?" he asked curiously, sliding into a computer chair near Rouge. She was in her 'agent' mode, so there was no teasing or beating-around-the-bush.

"We think we know where Eggman is getting Babylonian technology and selling it off in the Black Market."

"We have reason to believe he's been stealing from the Battle Bird Armada," Shadow said in the same emotionless tone, "judging from the retaliation destruction of Eggman's robots and the murder of spy operatives on Babylonian soil."

"Do you know what, Cal?" she asked, swivelling her chair to look at him. "Central City says that the Armada is slowly heading towards Soleanna, which is freaking the fuck out of Eggman."

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah, one of our spies in the Armada has stated that they're looking for a 'key', but we have no idea what kind," she sighed, slumping on the desk.

"You know," Caleb murmured, shifting around the papers, "I think I heard one of the Babylon Rogues mention they're looking for a 'someone'. Does GUN have any info on that?"

"None that we've come across," said Shadow angrily, scrunching up one of the newspapers and throwing it at Chris' head, who protested quietly. "Have you found anything, kid?"

"Why does everyone feel the need to throw things at me?" he muttered before he was assaulted with three more balls of rolled up paper. "Okay! Here. We have a new email from the GUN branch in Central City."

"That's awfully close."

"It says that the Battle Bird Armada could definitely be heading in our direction, shooting down absolutely every GUN ship that was sent in their direction to investigate," the teenager placed a hand to his forehead as he read this, worry knitting his eyebrows together as his blue eyes continued to scan the computer monitor. "It says we should prepare for combat if you are not a Babylonian descended mutant, or if you plan to fight for those that aren't."

"This is impossible!" Rouge cried, flopping onto the desk in front of her, almost spilling her coffee. "How are we supposed to help fight off one of the most advanced military forces, supported by blood-thirsty mutants, when Tower**(iv)** won't send any more troops and agents to help us?"

"I know he's always been a bit of an ass, but he seriously won't send any more over?"

"No, because it's too dangerous apparently. After all, all of the GUN agents that Eggman finds have their corpses dragged through the streets. We can't have that…" she shook her head, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm. "As if we haven't got enough problems as it is… Hey, Chris, can you update Heartnet on the dark side of the Cult of Argus?"

The teenager looked about as tired as the two GUN agents, and it was only ten pm. He spun around in his chair and brought his leg up onto the chair, "The Cult of Argus have been keeping quiet as of late, because the rumours circulating about the pro-mutant medic and his mother Marsali Scottmen are getting them into a lot of heat, but if the information that we've gained from him is true, then they really have been doing more freaky voodoo stuff behind the scenes."

"That I know," Caleb replied, but it lacked his normal venomous nature, because he was starting to absorb the tired atmosphere of the three surrounding him.

"Then you'd know that they're animating the dead again?"

"Yes I do," the fox retorted, eyebrows knitting together in annoyance, because Thorndyke was speaking to him like an idiot, which he was not. Y'know, just to set the record straight.

"Okay then," the rookie replied defensively, looking back at the screen for more information. "Apparently, Commander Truscott's older sister was reanimated to lure the missing Gabriel Winchester out of hiding."

"Oh man," Caleb groaned, "they really haven't told you _anything,_ have they?"

"I'm sorry!" Chris replied, palms up in defence. Caleb couldn't help it. The cadet was telling him stuff he already knew. He needed something that he didn't. "So then you've probably already assumed that Claudel is working with Marsali Scottmen and her master, the man that brought Truscott's sister back to life."

"Wait a second!" the fox said in alarm, "Alright, I didn't know that part. Who brought Arielle back to life?"

"We don't have a name, but apparently all of his followers call him Dark Master."

The empath released a shaky breath and tried to compose himself, "What else do you have?"

"Apparently this Dark Master is stronger than both Marsali and Darken Rahl, which is pretty frightening. But no one we have contacts with has ever seen him before. Another interesting tidbit is that we hear he's trying to rein in the Tails Doll."

"Do you know why?"

"No."

"Fuck…" Caleb swore.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

The fox narrowed his eyes at Chris, turning back to Shadow and Rouge. The bat was lazily drinking her coffee and reading another article, but it looked like Shadow had fallen asleep with his head on the desk. He swivelled his chair back in Chris' direction.

Now, he had never had that much of a problem with Chris. Back at the Academy, he had been pretty normal, shy, recluse, like him. He came from a rich family that didn't pay him any attention, while Caleb came from a rich family that had been ripped apart. Chris had joined the Academy because he'd rather learn self-defense surrounded by other people than by himself. His adaptability to machines had instantly earned him a spot in the technical division, and once this mission was over, he was going to graduate from high school with high Central City (Chris was from Central City, Station Square, but completed his training in Downunda) Tertiary Admission Rank in electronic engineering. He wasn't bad, but the kid (referring to him as _kid _was both ironic and amusing) was a little wimpy and whiney, plus his fighting wasn't nearly where it should be up to to graduate. It made sense, he was in the electronic division.

What confused him was why _Leilani_ would decide to train Chris of all people.

Leilani, despite being criminally insane, did have her pick of students, because she was a fine teacher. And… her last student had become one of the most deadly fighters in existence after all. It was true; he'd never seen Arly beaten in a battle before. So even though she had people fighting for her attention, she chose Chris… why?

"Hey Thorndyke… why did Leilani decide to choose you as a student?"

"I know that was some kind of thinly veiled insult, but since I know you're a way better fighter than me, so I choose to answer that," the brunet replied. "You know when you told me about Skye?"**(v)**

"What about it?"

"I was the one that told her that he was poisoned."

"So?" Caleb was asking for an elaboration. That wouldn't be enough alone.

"I was the only one of her unit back in Downunda that had the guts to tell her. Everyone else was telling her that I was crazy and that she shouldn't listen to me, because whenever Leilani got angry, she took it out on her students."

"So…" the brown fox thought that he could guess what Chris' story was, "you were constantly beat up by your class mates for trying to tell Leilani the truth, and in the end, you were right, and she had to kill him?"

"Well… it's a little more complicated than that… but yeah…"

The brunet nodded his head, and for a second, the annoyance he felt towards Chris dissipated. Both he and Chris had endured beatings that they really shouldn't have, because it was unjust and ruthless, with no real purpose. Well, in the end, Caleb had come up with a reason to take those punishments, but Chris hadn't. He was just trying to prevent a disaster, one that –had people listened to him- could have been prevented.

"You know what, I was wrong about you…" the empath said to him, earning a confused look from the cadet before he waved him off.

"Okay… Well, Mytho said that he's in his private apartment when you want to see him."

"What? I've been wasting my-?" he snarled at the human, who had turned around so he couldn't see the bared teeth. "Oh forget it." Yeah, he still didn't like Chris.

"I'll see you later, Rouge."

"Don't keep the commander up too late," she teased.

The outside of GUN Headquarters was disguised as one of the shoddy buildings in Crisis City so that Eggman wouldn't be suspicious and bomb it down. Caleb had to take the elevator to the top floor where they kept the temporary high-ranked agents assigned to this mission who were lacking accommodation of their own.

Despite the fact that the entire place was very business-like and had little to no architecture, he felt rather at home. He felt safe here anyway.

He knocked on Mytho's door, rolling his eyes when he answered shirtless and adorning a pair of puppy-paw-printed pyjamas. He pushed past the wolf, immediately moving to the refrigerator, "What have you got to drink? I have a headache and I just wasted two hours downstairs waiting for you…"

"What?" Mytho replied, "I swear I told Leilani's intern to tell you…"

"He didn't tell me until five minutes ago… honestly, she didn't pick him because of his competence," Caleb sighed, pulling out some soda. "And _you,_ why couldn't you just tell me yourself?"

"What's the point in having subordinates if you can't boss them around a little bit?" he joked, flopping onto the couch and grabbing Caleb's hand to pull him down too. He came down with a yelp, growling at Mytho who laughed heartily. He picked up a few documents from the table while Caleb drank, wishing he could have something stronger than _soda_ of all things. God, it sucked to be seventeen.

"I have a present for you."

"It better not be another sex toy, or so help me _God_ Mytho I am going to shove this so far down your throat-" he stopped mid-threat as Mytho dumped the papers in his lap, stealing his soda and taking a long sip.

"I pulled some strings for you," he grinned, pointing to the top of the pile. "You know how you were going to graduate from the Academy with honours, but then your funding was cut short because of your dad hacking into your education funds?"

"Yeah, what about it?" he didn't like this… Mytho was dredging up things from the past. If Caleb had graduated from GUN Academy instead of Crisis City Public, than he would have been able to apply for a better job than Rapidi Solis. He wouldn't even have been able to take the job at Rosetti Art Store if he wasn't Selina's son.

"Look here. We've got your STAR scores for all of the non-required subjects in our database, which are _really_ high by the way, but we always knew you were a smart one, even if Arly kept on corrupting you out of studies. If you're willing to take the Martial Arts, Firearm Expertise, Intel Mission and Practical Studies examinations, we can give you a scholarship for one of GUN's branches in Station Square; Stardust University of Professional Design."

"No."

"_What?_ You ungrateful brat. Do you know how hard it was to get this?"

"Do you not _listen_ to me, Mytho? I've got a little sister to take care of."

"Well I'm sure if you get a job there, you can cover her expenses too, and since you'll be graduating with _two_ high school certificates, one from Downunda GUN Academy, I'm sure you'll be able to find one that pays enough to support Arianna."

"Her name is _Charlotte,_" Caleb snarled.

"Her name is Arianna, and your name is _Gabriel,_" he snorted, "if you haven't forgotten. If you go to Central City, then you won't have to hide your identities there. It'll be better for you and Lottie."

"No we won't," he growled, "you severely underestimate the power of my father."

"Just what is your father, that he can restrict you _this_ much?"

The brown fox rolled his eyes before spitting out the words, "Eggman's main ammunition supplier."

Mytho spat out his drink, staring at Caleb with shock.

"See? Told you."

"God _dammit,_ Caleb. Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"Because I had reason to keep it a _secret_ until now."

"What kind of secret could be that incredible, that you had to keep it a secret up until now?" he snarled the words out, realising exactly how much they could have done if they had the information sooner. How much else was Caleb restricting? Why was he doing this?

The fox started shaking, frightened with the tone that Mytho had used to yell at him. He felt vulnerable, so much more than he had in the last few years. The lump was starting to form in his throat, and the sting was developing behind his eyes.

"This is _insulting,_" he spat, horrified when his voice started trembling. "I don't deserve this, and I'm running out of time! Give it to someone more promising."

"You're changing the subject again," the wolf, training in anticipating Caleb's moods, tried to get the fox to look at him to get him to calm down. It wasn't working; he just kept shaking out of the wolf's grasp, a salty film developing over his cerulean eyes. "Hey… what's wrong?"

"I've been hated my entire life… but this time I really _deserve_ it…" he muttered, clutching his elbows and shuddering as if he was cold. He felt disgusted with himself. But he couldn't muster up the courage to tell Mytho why. He'd tried to get something Caleb would like, and he did. The empath wanted to accept the scholarship more than anything, but it was a wasted cause. There was no point in looking forward to the future. What he had to do in the time that he had was secure one for Lottie.

_Lottie!_

And how would he do that? The only way to make sure she was safe was to kill Claudel, but that was proving so much harder than he ever imagined. Plus… No… he didn't even want to _think_ about it right now…

"You know what you _could_ do?"

"What?"

"Use the witness protection agency to send Lottie to Central, and enrol her in a school there. I can provide the money for her education and living expenses."

_"How?"_ Mytho asked, bemused. "When I found you, you were scrounging around for cash. _Now_ you're filthy rich?"

"Filthy's right," Caleb sighed, digging out his wallet. He pulled out six cards from his pocket, all ring accumulators. "There. Each of those cards are maxed out with one hundred thousand ring credits. I've got heaps more back at Black Arms."

"How did you get these?" he asked, picking one of them up.

"It's a form of blood money… compensation…" he murmured.

"Caleb… you said you would never fall into your father's form of work."

"What's a little assassination after all of the shit that I've done?" he joked, but Mytho didn't laugh. "No, I didn't."

"Well then how did you get it?"

"I-I can't tell you…" he cried, shaking his head. "If I tell you then you'll hate me too. Mom's dead. Dad hates me. Arly wants to _kill_ me. Leilani will want to kill me. And I'm about to lose everyone else. Silver. Tails. Rouge. Shadow. Welshscot. I can't. You and Lottie are the only people that I have left…"

"Hush." Mytho whispered, cradling his head so that Caleb's forehead rest between the crook of his neck and shoulder, running his hand through the raven locks soothingly. Initially the fox had been against acts of intimacy like this, but now he was too distraught to care. He tried to ignore the way that Mytho's touch sent shivers down his spine, and the wolf ignored Caleb's claws sinking into his back, or the distinct sniff of someone trying to hold back tears. He knew Caleb was sick of crying, sick of looking weak, and that half of the emotional intensity was due to his power, but there was nothing he could do in this situation.

"Drink this."

The fox thrust a small bottle of aloe vera in Mytho's direction. The wolf looked at it with confusion, before obeying Caleb's orders and drinking it. It was barely three mouthfuls but the sweet taste invigorated him.

"What was it for?"

"Disease prevention," Caleb replied before gripping the back of Mytho's head and pressing his lips firmly to his. Mytho, shocked at the sudden movement tried to push him away. Caleb, seemingly miffed at the movement, pressed forward with a determined look in his eyes.

"What the- _Cal, _calm down. What's wrong with you?" he murmured, pressing his fingers to the fox's collar bone and gently running a hand through his hair, pulling the strands out of the band used to secure his hair in a ponytail. Caleb groaned and pressed his head into the crook of the wolf's neck.

"This is so awkward. Since when have you not been able to tell when I'm throwing myself at you?"

"Because you don't," he smiled, trying to get Caleb to do it too, but he was met with resistance. He wiped away a tear with a thumb and tried to pull up a side of Caleb's mouth, but he was Hell bent on frowning. "Stop implying that you're a whore."

"Prostitute then," he sighed, pressing his lips to Mytho's neck. "How do I put this in simple terms so I can get it through your thick head?... _Fuck_ me."

_"Caleb,"_ Mytho scolded. "No. You're not in your right mind."

"You speak as if I've always had a reasonable sense of sanity," he pawed at Mytho's chest with the ferocity of a sleepy kitten, groaning into his neck. "_When_ did you grow a sense of responsibility?"

"Since you went off your rocker," he murmured, trying to get Caleb to look him in the eyes, but he just kept slouching in his grip.

"I just…" when he looked up this time, there were no tears, but there was a clear longing and sadness in his eyes that Mytho just couldn't ignore. "I just want to remember what it _feels_ like…" that had to be hard, coming from an _empath,_ "to be loved again…"

The wolf's expression softened as Caleb leant on his shoulder again, "Okay… okay…"

* * *

><p><em>If This Was A Movie <em>by Taylor Swift

* * *

><p>Dawn spread sunlight across her feathers with a sheen that was bright and glorious in colour and warmth, but she felt anything but. Today she'd fall out of the competition and continue to aid the GUN investigation team look for the co-ordinates to Eggman's base. She was dressed in her usual attire today, a phone in one hand so that she could look up the news. Of course, civilian news didn't catch all of the details revolving around the current goings-on in Soleanna, but they gave Wave a generalisation to work off.<p>

She was trying to focus on anything but what had occurred last night. When they returned to the Black Arms there was that awkward moment at the end when the movies had told them they were supposed to kiss after a supposed non-date. Wave had simply given Tails a hug and turned in for bed, staying up just long enough to relay what she'd found out to Jet and Storm. From this point on, they wouldn't have time for each other. They were slowly running out of time.

But… why would it affect her so much? Tails was a friend. A _great_ friend, but it's not like she was in love with him or anything. He'd certainly thought he was in love with her but he got over it. It's not like it was something as dangerous as an imprint or something. If it was, she couldn't be sure she'd have the will to leave. She refreshed the news, finding nothing but excitement about the speech that Nega Eggman was going to give about Adam and riots near the cemetery, plus the odd Solaris/Argus rumour.

The swallow gave up, sitting on the curb sluggishly, not in the mood to race at all, which was good considering she was going to flunk out of the competition anyway. She heard footsteps coming closer and closer, and she turned her head to regard the source of the noise. Cream had appeared, walking up the block with a small picnic basket in one of her hands. Wave was about to let out an snort before sadness overwhelmed her with one tiny thought. She turned on her side and beckoned Cream closer.

The rabbit was a little suspicious of the swallow's behaviour, even more so when she motioned for her to sit down.

"Hey, Cream, it's been a while."

"It has, Ms Wave," the rabbit dipped her head in greeting, but the rogue could tell that her words were more clipped and forced than before. "What can I do for you?"

"I need to speak to you about something serious concerning Tails," the swallow murmured, watching as sadness flickered in Cream's large chocolate brown eyes before the girl composed herself and forced her gaze to lock with Wave's. They were such a contrast; Wave, sexy and deadly, Cream, cute and sweet. It was a wonder how two girls could speak to each other like this.

"What is it?"

"You probably already know what I'm going to say," the technician admitted, fighting back the sting in her eyes when her tone wavered. She didn't want to show weakness in front of someone she had once considered… would she say a rival? It didn't seem right. But at one point they had fought for Tails' attention. It was… odd, to think she had once pitted herself against such a sweet girl. She thought that Cream would at least freeze up and walk away from her once the tear escaped her eye, but the Cream that shot dirties at her behind Tails' back wasn't here.

The rabbit leant forward and placed a hand on Wave's shoulder. Because of the rare show of affection, the swallow allowed a small sob to escape her lips. Cream brought Wave forward into a warm hug, and the rogue marvelled at how comforting she was, even though Cream barely knew her, and Wave had been so mean to her at one point. That was a trait that she shared with Tails, Wave supposed.

"Take your time," she murmured, in a voice that was sweet, but slowly maturing with age.

"Tails…" she sniffed, "in a very, very dark place right now. I know you don't owe me anything, but I need you to promise me that you'll look after him."

"Of course," the rabbit replied without any hesitation.

"Cream…" Wave found that the rabbit's gaze, gentle and strong, was almost overpowering in a way. She almost felt shames that she had once slandered Cream's name. How could she compare herself to someone so pure? "I… I need someone to love him, the way that I can't."

"Wave," the rabbit shook her head slowly, looking at Wave with confusion, "I'm not sure I can do that."

"But-"

"I'm not blind," she replied, "Tails is in love with you."

"But, I can't _be_ there for him. Even if I learnt to love him as well, there's… No, there's too many obstacles. It would never work…"

Cream didn't agree with her… She didn't argue either. She simply shook her head, brows slanting in sadness. "I will try to take care of him. You have my word."

Wave wiped her eyes, accepting another hug and nodding before whispering another thank you to her new friend.

The rabbit looked down at her basket of 'good luck' cookies and then to the Solean dawn, "But I can't ever replace the ache of an imprint. I'm sorry, Wave…"

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i)** *cough*Shadow*cough*. During the **Shadow the Hedgehog** video game, he develops a habit of _stealing_ other people's vehicles, such as silver sports cars and GUN motorcycles as well as various other alien tech.

**(ii)** See Chapter 20: This World Has Changed Me, under the section _Remain_ by Alanis Morissette where Knuckles and Julie-Su were travelling through the Black Market, and stumbled upon the **Air Necklaces**, a tool used in **Sonic Adventure**.

**(iii)** **Aquarium Park** is a location from **Sonic Colours**.

**(iv) Abraham Tower** is the leader of **Guardian Unit of Nations**, the predecessor to _Nathaniel Truscott_, _Mytho Truscott's_ father and **Shadow's** personal mentor. He resides in **GUN's** main base somewhere in **Guardian Mountain.**

**(v)** See Chapter 41: Free Fallin', under the section _kobiee:_** Her piece of the puzzle.** _Skye De Marco _was mentioned briefly as _Leilani Cesario's_ brief infatuation, who died during the **Black Advent.**

Whoo! The fourth race is coming up! Don't forget to review~

**ღ**


	56. Suckerpunched

**domi|note**

Thanks to **LordCooler**, **Lord Kelvin**, **Stonefaced610**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Ficfan412**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **insidious fanboy**, **Undead009**, **ArmalRavenwing** and **Smallspek **for reviewing the latest chapters.

If you're curious, there's another new chapter in slot 31, titled **An Old Home** written by **Welshscot**, but its unbeta'd at the moment because I can't get a hold of **Pixel Fly.**

**Smallspek~** Oh no, did you lose your password again? You can take all the time in the world to read the story, as long as you're enjoying it. I don't mind. I feel sorry for the surrounding metro people, you always do seem to freak them out, and I can kind of understand why. Ad campaign companies should hire you!

Oh yeah, and be warned, I can't be sure the bots won't take this story away for breach of the MA violence thing, so I'm looking for another site I can back this up on. I don't know, has anyone been attacked with that threat yet?

**UNBETA'D. I'm sorry! I can't find my beta, and this MA rated business is freaking me out.**

**Enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Keep your flame lit and you will never feel darkness. ~J. Parker<br>_…**  
>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Six  
>.<em>  
>"You can't take away my strength, fix these broken veins. There's nothing left to fight (Live free or let me die). You can't take away my pride, I won't be denied, there's nothing left to fight (Live free or let me die)."<br>…_  
><em>_Ladies and Gentlemen_ by Short Stack

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry, <em>what?<em>" Wave asked, turning around to regard Cream again, who was smiling innocently.

"Nothing," the rabbit replied, curling her fingers in a wave before going inside the garage to greet the other contestants. Wave simply shrugged her shoulders as she stretched; composing herself so that no one could tell she had recently been crying. She let the thought of what Cream had been muttering under her breath slide as she waited for Jet and Storm to return.

Jet was participating in the Grand Prix today, but unlike Wave and Storm, he was going to win. It would be easy. There were only thirty-three racers left in the Prix, and by the end of the day, there would only be the twelve finalists. She didn't know how they were going to go from there, because twelve wasn't enough to accommodate an eight-person race anymore, but you needed at least sixteen people to have two races. It didn't really matter. It wasn't her concern anymore.

The two male Rogues arrived with looks of solemnity on their faces, sighing heavily as they touched down. Jet shuffled his boots as Storm scratched his head-feathers, waiting for one of the other two to start talking. The green hawk, and leader, decided to take it upon himself to break the silence, "Well, it looks like the plan has been delayed, but only a little bit."

"What happened to Cesario's contact?"

"We just discovered that she was dead."

_What?_ Wave's mind whirled with a mix of dark thoughts.

"No, she wasn't killed recently, according to our information, she was murdered four years ago… oh, and she's also Heartnet's mother," Jet shrugged innocently, as if it was no big deal. Confusion and shock blinded him a moment as Wave tried to process the information.

"H-How are we supposed to get the information if the contact is dead?" she replied in a tone that suggested she wasn't all there anymore.

"Cesario said that she'd handle it," Storm replied, effectively ending that topic of the conversation. There was a collective exhale from all of the Rogues before they moved onto what she really wanted to discuss.

"So what do we do now?"

"We wait…"

"But… Jet, Storm," she murmured, crystal eyes locking with each of theirs in turn, "have you not read the news? Felt the surges? The Armada is coming closer, and if we're caught, we're dead meat."

"We know," the big grey bird replied, "but we can't leave the Key alone."

"Eggman's machinery is coming very close to finding it, and we need to be there when it does," Jet affirmed, nodding his head to secure his authority. His demeanour changed a second, giving Wave one apologetic glance before heading inside to have breakfast; they had been out since dawn after all. She cast one last look to the early morning sun before bidding it farewell too, stepping into the shadows of the Arms.

* * *

><p><em>Airplanes feat. Hayley Williams <em>by B. o. b.

* * *

><p>"Get up you lazy piece of shit."<p>

"As charming and eloquent as ever," Mytho groaned into the covers, trying to block out the sound of Caleb's ringtone as it blared in his ears, screaming _'Haha bitch! Try and go back to sleep now!'_ "Tell me, Levi, since when were you a morning person?" he mumbled while the fox tugged on his pants and pulled on his shirt.

"Things change," he replied, muttering the last bit with a bit of distain, "but apparently your sleeping habits have not."

Mytho shot up at that, green eyes glaring at the fox who was still slipping on his flannel, not even caring how stupid his hair looked all tussed up like it was. The wolf thought it was sexy, but he had to remove himself from such thoughts as he tried to sustain his look of contempt, "Is that a complaint?"

Caleb's words slurred as he ignored his still-ringing phone, "It can be whatever you want, Darlin'," he fished in his pocket and sat on the bed, grabbing Mytho's face and tugging it closer. The wolf almost choked from being man-handled so roughly. Okay, maybe Caleb _wasn't_ a morning person. "Now drink this as an extra precaution," he demanded, sticking another small bottle of aloe vera in his mouth. When he looked like he was going to stop spluttering the empath patted his head as one would a child, while answering his stupid phone "Good boy, finish that up and get dressed. We need to go to Rosetti**(i)**, Cesario has just sent me a text about intel gathering."

The wolf spat the bottle out and pulled at Caleb's wrist to see the text, "What does your work have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," the fox replied sardonically, "why don't we go there and find out?"

"Gods, you are bitchy today. Who shoved a stic-"

"Don't even go there."

"Bossy."

"I thought you liked that about me?" he replied sarcastically, grabbing his wallet and heading out the door.

"You need coffee."

"That I do, thanks for the observation."

"And maybe a tampon."

"Your poor performance made me grouchy," the fox smirked, the smile melting into a look of shock as he shoved him into the wall, then the shock turned into a laugh, "Real mature, Myth."

"Ah, there we go your smiling now."

"Observing stupid people always makes me smile."

"Oh yes, always at the expense of another, I see."

Caleb adopted a dramatic theatre voice as he said, "There is no greater joy in the world, than the suffering of others."

Mytho snorted as they walked into the elevator, hitting the ground floor button, "That's kind of odd, considering you're an empath at all."

"It's not true," he shrugged, "once this power's been a part of you for a while, it helps to shape your personality. There are some cases where it doesn't; like… say Prower, yeah? He's super smart, can fly, and is a technopath. He doesn't let that power get to his head like it would have to a normal person. People like Leilani and Shadow, let their power over rule them so they become nasty and unapproachable."

"And then there is you, who's sarcastic and irritable, when you should be running around and hugging people."

"Fuck off."

"Do you kiss your sister with that mouth?"

"You know half of the filthy things I do with my mouth, slagging you off his the least of your worries," his lips twitched up in a sarcastic smile as the doors opened and they greeted the secretary, walking out of the building after checking for patrols. The both of them looked around, noticing that there were robots monitoring for Extreme Gear activity everywhere. Deciding not to anger them, they went in one of the GUN plain vehicles instead, so as to not draw attention to themselves.

Caleb was taking advantage of the fact that Mytho's phone had internet connection to make sure the news didn't come up with something ill-fated, considering all the bad shit that came up whenever Grand Prix races happened.

They walked into Rosetti art store calm and collected, but once Caleb realised what was happening he let out a cry of outrage before pouncing on Leilani in an attempt to cut off her hands.

"WHAT ARE YOU _DOING?_" he screeched, clawing at her hands and the painting she had pulled just out of his reach. In her hand was a small little portrait- simple, delicate and beautiful, signed in his mother's hand. Of course, the GUN agents surrounding them had been suspecting this would happen, because one immediately moved to restrain Caleb and pull them off the officer in charge of this operation.

"Agent Cesario, what's happening here?" Mytho declared in his shut-up-I'm-being-serious-now tone.

"Yes!" Caleb spat, "Care to explain to me why you're tearing up my mom's paintings?"

Leilani took the small portrait she had been dissecting, being extra careful to remove the canvas on the edge of the picture only. The brown fox watched as she fiddled her pocket knife between the double-bound canvas and three small papers fluttered out of the picture.

"I did some in depth research into fire at the Castle Town Orphanage**(ii)** after the agent set it on fire. One of the paintings by Selina an agent found was half incinerated, but the weird thing was, we found _money, _more specifically, paper ring credits, bound inside the painting." She bent down to pick up the papers that had fluttered to the ground, "It led me to believe we have reopened a case; the one detailing the _reason_ why Claudel murdered your mother, and I think it's because of these papers."

"What papers?" Caleb growled, "Okay, so she might have stashed some money between the canvases. Heaps of her pictures were double bound, she said it was so that the ink wouldn't seep through the white, but they could be extra thin so that it was easier to paint on."

"Not just _money,_" Leilani replied, reading over the papers. The GUN agents let Caleb go so he could walk up to her, looking at the papers as well. His eyes widened. "In the few pictures we've managed to acquire, there have been reports, details about what happened during Black Advent, _before_ the Crimson Night**(iii)**. We've found _locations_ to Eggman strongholds where weapons, robots and databanks are so that he can monitor Soleanna. There are witness statements about the Metallix guard and their opinions about what happened before The Massacre. There are even _missing_ notes about Project Shadow that GUN wasn't able to acquire."

Caleb blinked, shell-shocked. What the _fuck_ had his mother been up to? And in what state of mind was she that Selina thought sealing these important documents inside _paintings_ was relatively safe enough?

"Cal, this is my mission; to find the vault. In the papers we've just discovered, there's a copy of her will. It says that Rosetti Art Store, and all the paintings that weren't _sold_, belong to Gabriel Winchester if she is to die."

"This is impossible, how did my mother even I _get_ these documents?"

"Are you kidding?" one of the GUN agents replied, "Your mother was invited to _every_ high society event there was to paint. If Cesario is right, there isn't _one_ crime lord that she doesn't have some dirt on."

Caleb shook his head, trying to absorb the information, "_How_ am I supposed to _prove_ I am Gabriel Winchester?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Your mother thought of everything, including you renouncing your identity," brown eyes met Caleb's shocked blue ones. "Caleb, do you remember the story you told me when you were in seventh grade? About the black widow and how she stole away her lover's heart?**(iv)**"

"Yes, what about it?"

"You remember one of Selina's most famous paintings was called 'The Black Widow', yes?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"You know what that means, right?"

"Yes…" If Selina had taken the time to drill that story into his head that meant that something _really_ important was hidden inside that painting. The problem was… "But, no one's seen those paintings… Before mom died, she locked them away inside a vault that… that…" that only _he _knew the password to. The password was the _story,_ but there was a reason she made him memorise it so precisely, with the exact same wording _every single_ time.

"That only _you_ have access to," she answered for him, then she gestured to the other pictures in the store, "Caleb, I'm guessing that in any one of the thousands of painting in Soleanna, there could be a way for you to prove you're Gabriel Winchester. There's also hidden stashes of money for orphanages, and organisations that need it. There are co-ordinates for some of Eggman's most important bases, and… there's undeniable proof against some of Soleanna's top wanted criminals. I'm guessing that the reason Claudel murdered your mother was because..."

"Because he found out what she was doing behind his back, once she found out what he was doing behind hers."

"Yes…"

Okay… but just because his father had murdered his mother for a reason didn't mean Claudel wasn't a sick-fuck. The only reason he hadn't left Caleb alone for the last few years was because he needed the documents inside Selina's secret vault, which even Caleb didn't know the location of. Awesome.

"So, the reason that my mother's paintings are so valuable is because of the documents inside?"

"There also incredibly beautiful," Mytho supplied, "there's no doubt about that. I'm sure many of them were purchased without the buyer knowing what was inside."

"I see," the fox nodded.

"This is how I plan to use your mother as a contact, I'm absolutely _sure_ she has the co-ordinates for Eggman's major base in the Forbidden Zone, somewhere inside a painting."

"My mother was a vigilante spy," he scoffed before laughing about it. "And all this time, she'd tricked me into thinking she was a pacifist."

Never had he been more proud to be Selina's son, then at that very moment. And to think, he thought he got his talent for manipulation from his father. Man, he couldn't have been more wrong.

* * *

><p><em>Girlfriend<em> by Avril Lavigne

* * *

><p>Tails steeled his resolve as he was once again confronted with his second huge challenge, getting into the Player's Room of the Egg Dome. He had gotten to the Dome no problem, flanked at the sides by Shadow, Storm, Jet, Knuckles and Wave. Of course, such a formidable party of fighters wouldn't be targeted, even if a slight liability like him was in the middle of the fray.<p>

Since it looked like only a very small amount of people would be willing to part for the racers opposing Eggman this time 'round, the news reporters had gone ahead and rolled out the red carpet for their athletes. Tails found it a very welcome change, as he was getting ready to push people out of the way, the unfortunate side of the entire situation was that they'd have to avoid a lot of the news casters. He almost made it across the carpet when Omochao caught up to him.

"Hello, Miles, or as your public like to call you, Fox-trot."

Tails looked at the door nervously before turning to the camera that was shoved into his face. It seemed that Shadow was the only one of their posse that was able to avoid an interview, and it was because he had the gall to shove the camera away and spit 'No comment' to Chocola.

"Uh," he scratched the back of his head, smiling innocently, "Hi."

There was a collective 'aww' that ran through the crowd at the adorable action, causing Tails to widen his eyes at the crowd of females behind the camera. What the- When did that happen? His frightened and shocked expression made the females 'aww' and fawn even louder, making him laugh nervously and blush uncomfortably.

"So, how are you feeling about the upcoming race?"

"I'm actually more concerned than anything. I keep wondering how they're going to settle the final twelve contestants," he replied honestly. "You know? Once the thirty-three is devided into eight it becomes four point one two five, and you can't divide twelve by eight."

"Wow," Omochao grinned at him, but he couldn't really tell because of all of her bionics. "They weren't kidding when they called you a smarty-pants."

An idea popped into his head immediately, "Did you guys want to know what I've done to my board?"

They seemed a little more unsure about this answer, but since Tails was gaining so much attention, they allowed it, "Yeah, sure."

"Well firstly I changed the chemical compound and concentration of orichalcum in the exo-skeleton of the Gear, completely changing the armour to decrease friction. Next I manipulated the central gravity unit to balance the axis for independently altering the control surface flow, which is a slight variation of the Kutta–Joukowski Theorem, which states that inverse kinetics require cylinders generated by lift and altered by the velocity of the fluid through the cylinder. We don't have fluid, so it's replaced by artificial anti-gravitational force. Adding water to the entire structure would throw the balance from one side of the board to the other," he shook his head, "and the Extreme Gear's already unstable nature concerning momentum would put into place Newton's conservation of movement law. It's the unique built of an Extreme Gear that causes the mass and velocity to change the momentum. I know it shouldn't apply to something as rudimentary as Extreme Gear, but the chemical compounds screw up the regular gravitation qualities in the metal, especially when it is synthesised with the 'Un-Gravitify' range. This is required of polarised sub-atomic particles as it passes through a host mass, which in this case would be the Extreme Gear, the movement creates a wave pattern," he demonstrated this with his hands, "and rotates three-sixty degrees around it's directional axis, creating a spiral tube to-"

"_Alright, _Cutie," Omochao stopped him there, raising her hands to get him to stop. Tails did, pretending really.

"Oh sorry, was I rambling again?"

"He's adorable, _and_ he has brains! Tell the ladies what they really want to know, Tails, are the rumours between you and Wave really true?"

Tails flushed at the question, hoping the rambling about Extreme Gear would scare them off, but apparently it just spurred them on more. "Um…"

"C'mon, Prower," Wave snapped, grabbing the back of Tails' hoodie and hauling him to the Player's Room, "the races are about to start."

He looked from Wave to Omochao and waved sheepishly, making the crowd of fangirls erupt behind her. Wave muttered something under her breath angrily as she threw him into the Player's Room.

"What? Wave, are you okay?" he replied, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She shivered and brushed it off, and despite how much he told himself not to be, he was hurt by the action, hurt and confused. She placed her Gear down next to Storm and started whispering something to him, as Jet observed her demeanour and patted Tails' shoulder.

"Women can be confusing, but jealousy is obviously a bitch."

* * *

><p><em>Just Dance (Cover) <em>by Disco Curtis

* * *

><p>The Player's Room had never seemed so empty before, with a space built for entertaining hundreds, but only housing thirty-three racers. If he had the guts to yell, he was sure his voice would echo off the walls, but he wasn't feeling stupid and childish, he was feeling scared and insecure. These were the elite of Extreme Gear and fighting. Tails wasn't an idiot; you now couldn't get past the Grand Prix on Extreme Gear skill, you had to be a formidable fighter as well. Fighter he was, but <em>formidable<em>?

The basic player statistics had been online; he'd been studying them yesterday. All thirty-three of the racers were known for their incredible combat abilities… minus Tails of course. Out of the bunch, he was pretty sure there was a member from each of the four clans here. And there was speculation that a member from the Cult of Argus could have been the mysterious racer that kept hiding behind a black mask. In fact, there were a few racers that he just didn't notice were there until now, like Sleet, a coyote that fought for Eggman during the Black Advent, or- Oh crap, Predator Hawk was back… it looked like someone had gotten a hold of some aloe vera.

He decided to stick to someone nice and familiar, which unfortunately didn't mean running back to Wave, Sally was here, so he might as well speak to her, "Hi Sally!"

"Hello Tails," she greeted cheerily. There must have been something in his expression that revealed dread because her first reaction was to ask: "Are you okay?"

"I-I feel like I'm waiting for my execution," he attempted to smile, but it was a mere twitch of the lips before he asked her to drag him over to the standings.

"I know, it does feel that way, doesn't it?"

"I didn't know you liked Extreme Gear enough to reach the semi-finals," it was partially a statement, partially a question.

"It's not really a like for Extreme Gear," she admitted, shrugging, "it's strategy and quick thinking."

"Yes," he nodded, "that sounds more like you."

"But not nearly quick enough to beat your standards," she gushed, making Tails smile and scratch the back of his head. "According to the polls, your race is the most anticipated out of all of them, followed by each of the Babylon Rogue's, and then the Argus representative."

The both of them looked towards the cloaked racer, narrowing their eyes. It was leaning on a wall, waiting patiently to look at the standings and which race he would have to face. There were no distinctive features about this fighter except for his slim build, and the fact that he was extremely agile, according to the footage that Tails had viewed last night. He went by the initials MR, which didn't help in the slightest. He also hadn't _spoken_ in the entire competition.

When it became obvious that Tails was trying to see the monitor (and was too short to see over everyone else) a small little gap was made for him to squeeze to the front. He was… _shocked_ to say the least, that people racing against him would act so politely, or maybe it was courtesy to the youngest player, because they assumed he would be kicked off in this round.

_I have to stop being so negative,_ he berated himself.

He was in the sixth race, with three people that he recognised; Jet, Flying Frog and MR.

Flying Frog had been quiet as of late, which was weird, because as the goofball of the infamous Destructix, he should have been a lot louder. Maybe he didn't want to scare the competition? Well, it didn't look like he cared for their wellbeing now. Just two minutes ago, Shadow had punched him in the face for a rhyme that he knew the ending to:

_"Prince of darkness would have such class,  
>If it weren't for that pointy stick up his a-"<em>

Tails gasped when he saw MR right next to him. He had walked up to the monitor since it seemed everyone else was dispersing to take care of their Gear and listen to Omochao's various announcements about the race. He looked away from the shrouded hood, turning to Sally instead, who was looking intently at MR. Surprisingly enough, MR was barely taller than Tails.

"Looks like you're with me, Fox-trot."

Tails froze, a cold shiver running down his spine as MR started walking away, giggling into _her_ hand. The voice that MR had spoken with was that of a _girl,_ a young girl that was _eerily_ familiar. The young fox almost choked on his own tongue when a swishy yellow tail emerged from the back of MR's coat, and he jumped when Sally placed a hand on his shoulder.

"That doesn't sound like… it couldn't be…" she murmured, eyes wide with shock and tears.

"I don't know about you…" he whispered, not wanting to get MR's attention, "but it sounded a lot like Honey**(v)** to me."

Honey had been a sweet girl that had joined the resistance movement simply to protect people that couldn't. According to what Rouge had told him, the only one that had the possibility of knowing about Honey's past was Shadow, because she's had a small crush on him during the Black Advent. Even now, he watched as MR stood next to Shadow, who was thoroughly unnerved by the attention. The really _weird_ thing was… Honey had _died_ at the end of the Black Advent. She was crushed under the rubble of some burning buildings. Tails had seen it happen.

"Oh…" _That's why she's the Argus representative… because she was raised from the dead._ Gods, that was _sick_. Why couldn't they just let the dead lie? Should he talk to Honey? Tell her to go back to her grave? Leave Shadow alone? No way… He saw what Arly could do… or was that because she had known how to fight _before_ she died, or because her voodooist—necromancer-person had gifted her with special powers? He shuddered and tried to avoid them as Knuckles was called out for the third race.

He clutched his Gear to his chest as he watched the other racers target on Knuckles again, luckily enough, Storm was there to help him. Storm was intentionally trying to lose the race, so he had to hold back on the final lap. This was where the enemies struck. One of them pulled out a weapon Tails didn't recognise, a small little grey vacuum cleaner with pink stripes over it, and down Knuckles and Storm went, writhing in pain on the floor. Tails was shivering now, while the rest of the audience gasped in shock. They both lost the race, and were immediately sent into the emergency ward. The racer with the weapon was extracted and arrested, but the damage had already been done.

Shadow was with them when he watched what had happened, shaking his head and murmuring something under his breath.

"Are you okay, Shadow?" Tails muttered, and it took a while for Shadow to answer him.

"That was Black Arms tech," he spat, shaking his head. "Storm and Knuckles are both natural mutants, that's why they went down so fast."

"Where the Hell are they _getting_ these weapons?"

"Not from Eggman," Shadow replied, "since he only knows about Black Arms mutants… they had to have come from someone that knows about both of the races…"

"You know, when I was hit with Babylonian tech, I didn't go down that fast."

"Maybe, they didn't aim properly, or it was a different kind of weapon," Shadow supplied as the next group went in for their race. The black hedgehog was a Black Arms mutant; he should have been more scared than he was. What if they had Babylonian tech there? They were both _doomed_ if there was. How the Hell were they getting them past security?

_Oh, _Tails remembered, _It's the __**Egg**__ Dome, I almost forgot. _Of course weapons that were damaging the pro-mutant side were allowed in. Wait a second… but Eggman didn't know about the Babylonian descended mutants?… Damn this was getting confusing. _Shit, maybe he __**did**__ know! What do we do then?_ Still, how had he gotten his hands on _both_ kinds of weapons? What if it wasn't Eggman at all?

Tails was starting to get a headache, especially when it was declared that players had to stay for interviews. Shadow was about to protest to this by threatening the messenger boy when he frightfully added that it was in their contracts, the ones they signed when they signed up. Many times he had asked himself why Shadow had joined up, but Tails had put it down to needed to get a hold of Eggman for the notes about the Black Advent that might concern his past. Mostly involving Project Shadow, something that Rouge had briefly explained to him. Shadow didn't like dealing with the legal stuff though, he could have signed his life away. Luckily, Tails _had_ read the contract, being one of the only people in the Arms apart from Wave that bothered to do so.

"I'm going to fake an illness," Shadow muttered, and Tails almost burst out laughing, mostly because chucking sickies was one of the most childish things, and seeing Shadow attempt one would no doubt be hilarious. Tails had faked numerous sick days to avoid bullies, but watching Shadow put in so much effort to avoid a camera was ludicrous.

"You do that," Tails smiled, immediately sobering up when he realised that they were calling racers out for the sixth race.

"Good luck," Shadow said, another sign of affection that just suckerpunched Tails in the gut, "you're going to need it more than I do."

As Tails ascended the elevator and was blinded by the bright stadium lights, he couldn't help but think that Shadow was right.

* * *

><p><strong>(i)<strong> **Rosetti Art Store**, Caleb's second job. It is one of the only art stores in Soleanna and used to be owned by his mother. It's also a safe house for members of the resistance.

**(ii) **In **Chapter 40: I Just Don't Feel Safe Anymore** under the section _Everything Goes Dark _by The Hoosiers **Castle Town Orphanage** was set on fire by an agent of the _Cult of Argus_ (not the Church of Argus). Castle Town Orphanage was known for housing _Charlotte 'Lottie' Heartnet, _Caleb's little sister. It was also **Silver's** former home before he was old enough to find a place of his own.

**(iii)** _Black Advent_ is the horrific time that took place after the **Black Arms** invasion, the _Crimson Night_ was beginning of the Black Advent.

**(iv) **In **Chapter 40: I Just Don't Feel Safe Anymore** under the section _Never Grow Up_ by Taylor Swift Caleb and Lottie tell the Black Arms about a story their mother told them when they were children.

_"Once upon a time, there was a Black Widow who cried and cried because she was blind, and she could not find a husband because of it. Along came a spider who fell in love with her. He asked her to marry him, but she said she would only do it if he gave her his eyes. He did so immediately, and once she could see; she killed him and ate his heart."_

**(v) **Honey is a scrapped character from _Sonic Fighters. _So technically, she _is_ dead.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

IMPORTANT!~

Does anyone know an AO3 writer I can steal an invite off of? I'm starting to hear stories about people getting their MA rated fics taken down without any warning, and it is scaring the crap out of me, and I'd like this story backed up. I put a lot of effort into it, y'know? I know it hasn't got lemons in it, but I think I might have exceeded the violence limit, if you know what I mean.

I'll whore myself out to whoever gets me one. Jokes, but I'll be eternally grateful and stuff. I'm willing to write one-shots and draw pictures. But that's pretty much whoring anyway.

Toodles lovelies!~


	57. There Must Be Something More

**domi|note**

Thanks to **The Loner in the Shadows**, **LordCooler**, **HalfWright**, **Stonefaced610**, **Exploder**, **SmallSpek**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **The Silent Insomniac**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Talons310** and **Blaze of Fury** for reviewing the last chapters.

**SmallSpek~ **I could change my picture of Hope Estheim into something weirder and creepier if you'd like? Of course! You _must_ be from Mars, which would explain your eccentric behaviour. Does it occur to you that 'Hobo's Backwash' could really _be_ the hobo's backwash? You might have to check yourself for various STI's/D's. I don't know, FF's just weird. I don't know, Sega's already given into the PG-13 rating with Shadow, it might just move into the M rating soon enough.

**Talons310**~ Oh no, I'm sure making a list would just be too tedious with how long it would be *gets shot*. I'm joking. Thanks! I'm glad that you like my stories and style, even if I don't know if I necessarily _have_ a style.

**Blaze of Fury~ **Thank you! It makes me so happy to hear that.

**anon**~ If you'll be just a little more patient, you'll discover that Wave appears in Ch 3.

Thanks to the wonderful **Pixelated Firefly** for beta-ing the chapter.

**Enjoi. **

* * *

><p><em>Perchance God will pity a race that sought the better angels of its nature and found only its lesser demons. ~Robert Brault<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Seven  
>.<em>  
>"Without thought, without a voice, without a soul. (Don't let me die here) There must be something more. Bring me to life."<br>…_  
>Watercolour <em>by Pendulum

* * *

><p><em><strong>"<strong>**If you've just tuned in, welcome viewers to the Soleanna Grand Prix: Semi Finals! We're just about to enter our sixth and the **_**most anticipated**_** race of the day; that featuring Miles Prower, or Fox-trot, as the public have decided to call him."**_

He liked Omochao- _really,_ but he couldn't help himself from hoping she could just shut up for once. Her annoying voice echoed across the entire stadium as curious, wide blue eyes surveyed the area and attempted to figure out a strategy to win. Simple, right? Maybe not.

_**"This track is called Gigan Rocks and features high velocity drops and ludicrous jumps that only the most skilful of riders will be able to handle. Can our racers take the heat?"**_

From a history lesson he received from Knuckles when he was smaller, he could remember that Gigan Rocks**(i)** was a real location linked to ancient Babylonian myths. Of course, the Egg Dome was meant to simply be high-definition simulations, but it did feel like he'd travelled halfway across Mobius in a matter of seconds.

He was standing under an ancient altar, a gateway of Oriental red decorationswith wind chimes and runes in a language he couldn't understand. Poking out from cliff faces in between the sides of the track were slim trees with trunks so dark they were almost black with very little greenery about them, and mountains looming in the distance. The cameras zoomed around them trying to get close ups of the contestants while the players surveyed the area in fear, awe and trepidation.

The part of this course that really got his heart beating was the fact that beyond a few meters of the course, underneath a rock tunnel lined with packages for rings and weapons, the track simply stopped being visible. Tails knew that Omochao mentioned high velocity drops, so the thought of the very first one was scary, to say the least. What frightened him even more was the fact that beyond the first few meters, he couldn't plan what he was going to do. He would have to rely on instincts and think on the fly.

The thought exhilarated and scared him at the same time.

_I'd be just like Wave,_ he thought, grinning at the comparison. In all of the races he ever faced against the purple swallow, even in areas that _he _knew off by heart, she always managed to beat him. Wave had practiced quick thinking and instinctual reaction for years, a situation was thrust at her and her reaction was almost instantaneous, moving to better overcome the problem or use it to her advantage. Shadow, Sonic andany of the fighters that he looked up to also used this technique to get a better handle on their enemies. Could he ever hope to be as good as them?

He was snapped out of his thoughts as five more cameras came out of the landscape and started assaulting the players with questions. They were little cylindrical cameras with wings, an otherwise cute design, even when the voices that came out of them were not. The audience hushed up as soon as one of them started talking. One of them immediately went up to MR, asking her _"What is your first impression of the race track?"_

"What does it matter?" He swore Honey's voice was coming out of that shroud of black clothes. "I'm going to win anyway."

_"Such confidence! And we're sure MR can deliver, considering the performances of the three previous races,"_ said the drone before flying off to annoy another one of the racers. Was this the interview that the messenger boy had talked about earlier, while almost getting beaten up by Shadow in the process? The fox could see why he wanted to avoid them now.

Tails watched as one of the drones zero'd in on another masked figure, a racer he'd almost forgotten was there. It was strange; in the player's room he'd thought that Honey was the only female in this race, but as he examined the racer, he noticed the slimmer figure, and the prominent swell of an ample chest and luscious curves, a body that was shockingly familiar.

_"Is it true that you're the Yagyu clan_**(ii)**_'s_ _representative?"_ the spy drone asked, coaxing forth a melodious dark laugh from the mysterious woman. Tails clenched his fists and felt his whole body shudder. He could recognise that voice anywhere. Since when had _Arielle Truscott_ been in the races? So now there were two dead people in the race. _Awesome_.

_Is Caleb watching?_ the mechanic thought in alarm, chewing on his bottom lip. He hoped he wasn't. He hoped the empath was concerned with something else. _Anything_ else.

"I'm not one to kiss and tell," she told the camera, watching as the spy drone flew away. She turned her mask in his direction, and he just _knew_ she was smirking behind the disguise. She made a coquettish little head jerk, tilting her head to the side and curling her fingers in a wave.

He turned away, just as one of the spy drones caught him off guard with a question, _"You're one of the biggest threats in the competition, how does that make you feel?"_

"Umm…" the oh-so literate Tails replied, scratching the back of his head. How did that make him feel? "Kind of nervous actually," he said truthfully, "I mean there are really good _fight_ers here to-" he snapped his hand over his mouth again; blush flooding his cheeks when he realised that his voice had risen to its highest octave again.

_Damn the perils of being pre-pubescent! I just embarrassed myself on national television!_

He coughed to clear his throat, growling lowly when he noticed that the other competitors were laughing at him. If the audience wasn't being so quiet, they might not have heard him. "Well," he said to the camera, "you get the gist." He pushed the camera away, walked over to Jet and assumed a racing position, noticing that the extra spy drones were retreating. The lights on the side of the track were starting to brighten, signifying the start of the race.

The countdown started over the speaker and Tails started backing up, watching as Jet faltered in his movements, giving Flying Frog a glare before resuming his movements. Tails focused on his own standing, trying to stop hands from shaking as the laser whizzed past his feet towards the starting line. Three steps into the starting sprint, and he could already tell something was going to go wrong. A flurry of green hit him, knocking him off his centre of gravity before vaulting off him, catching another player and using him like… like a lily pad.

Tails was sent to the ground, but he scrambled up enough to see Flying Frog pounce from player to player, missing MR and Arly, but catching another male racer and using his head as a springboard towards the starting line right as the electricity barring his escape died and the race began.

_**"****What a brilliant starting move! Flying Frog has used each player as a stepping stone to take first place, followed closely by MR and the Yagyu representative."**_

Tails threw his board down, realising quickly that he was taking eighth place. Unwilling to give up fighting, he hit the thrusters immediately, feeling the effects of his adjustments immediately sending him past seventh, sixth and fifth place to meet Jet at fourth. He wished he didn't hit them so soon because he was starting to lose control of his board, due to the lessened friction resistance of his Extreme Gear. Even worse, they were plummeting at an almost eighty degreeangle to gain the momentum for the next jump.

Hitting the air accumulator for this particular jump was _really_ hard. Fighting against the air rushing past his body was like trying to wade through water. But he did manage it in the end, gaining enough air to perform a triple-twist front flip, sending out a cushion of air through the puffer jets so he wouldn't hit the next section of track with a bad fwump.

"Prower!" Jet yelled, a bad time to be doing it though, as they were heading down another steep slope. He forced himself to follow Jet's finger, which was locked onto an accelerator ring. The ramp to the accelerator ring was on an opposite wall, which would require him to use gravity control. So that's what he aimed for; in the second huge jump, at the height of his tricks he forced the board into gravity control, altering the direction of the board to thrust it at the wall, redirecting his gravitational axis to ride alongside the twisted alternate track.

He slid into ring accelerators easily, flying in short bursts of speed around the third massive jump and around the twisting spiral of track that led into a huge underground cave lit up by ancient torches and statues of ancient Babylonian heroes. He didn't have the time to sight-see though, because he had just touched down right in front of Flying Frog, who flew past him easily, tapping his foot on the starboard side of his Gear, pulling him off balance into a painful collision course with the ground.

_**"****A sneaky move by Flying Frog, not out of the rulebooks though. Does this spell the end for-Wait a second… What are MR and the Yagyu representative doing?"**_

If he wasn't mistaken, through his dirt-smudged goggles, Arielle and possibly Honey had braked right in front of him, tugging each one of his arms and pulling him to his feet. He couldn't even processed what had happened before he was set on his board again in second place.

_What the HELL?_

_**"****_I_t seems that Fox-trot has even **_**more **_**allies hidden among the player ranks, let me just say 'Lucky him' because if he's to beat the explosive Flying Frog, he's going to need it."**_

"Yeah right," Arielle laughed behind him, making Tails shudder again.

He snapped his head back to the two females, swerving around a tight corner to reach a huge ascending ramp with a blindingly bright white light at the top of the cavern. "Why are you _helping_ me?"

"Orders!" MR/Honey**(iii)** replied.

"Sweetie," Arielle laughed with a ferocious grin curling her full lips, "Remember what I said about not getting yourself killed?"**(iv)**

Being the pessimistic little thing that he was, Tails' mind immediately jumped to the first conclusion, "Are there assassins on the track?"

"Subtle, are you?"

The sentence struck him immediately. It was the kind of sentence Caleb would say.

The ermine pointed to the jump ramp at the end of the tunnel, giving him less than ten seconds to acquire the gravity he needed for the jump. They were lost in the amount of falling rubble that fell from the rim of the tunnel, and so he was helpless as to where the jump track would lead him. With a sudden burst of air, he rocketed from the spring board, flipping twice and adjusting his eyes to the sun to better get a hold of his surroundings. He'd rather have a dud score than crash into something unexpectedly.

The landing was easy, but there was a straight strip of land in front of him, with another higher track for the racers that had speed or grind compatibility Gears. There were also three accelerator rings up there, but he wouldn't be able to reach them without turbulence. At the end of the strip of land, he could see Flying Frog moving about the corner. Great. There were about eighteen kilometres in between them.

After the last tight turn he reached the starting line once again, this time, in second place. Everything was going perfectly until he saw a shiny puddle of strange liquid in front of him. It was spread out across the track, covering about two kilometres of distance. The gravity accumulator without a spring board would only get him about six meters across, so there was no way to avoid it. As soon as he crossed it, the paint/oil substance splattered against him, covering his goggles and blinding him, which was pretty disastrous considering he _knew _there was a one kilometre gap in the track at the next trick ramp. He tried wiping the paint off with his hands, but it smeared like ink and stained the plastic.

_**"****Looks like Fox-trot was hit with the colour screen, one of the new saboteur weapons included in this round of the races. He better be careful or else he's going to fall off the next ramp." **_

Relying completely on instinct, he started stepping the gravity accumulator. He was going to have to let it go right before the trick ramp ended, which was very dangerous. The fox waited in anticipation for the tell-tale signs of the board tipping before he totally went off the ramp. Since he was at the end of the spring board, the height and distance of his jump would increase dramatically, so he prepared for the worst when he let go of the accumulator and shot into the air like a bullet.

Normally, there was a controlled balance when he actually managed to get off the ramp, but now, as the colour screen was _just_ fading, the motions were going too fast for him to control. Within seconds, the gravitational pull his sneakers had to the board slipped and he was separated from the only item that would actually be able to save him from a horrific death. He could see it when he managed the brief glimpses at the ground. Against his better judgement, he could only come up with one possible solution to survive this mess.

_**"****NO! PROWER!"**_

This was either going to work… or he was going to die. He was hoping for the former.

When he started, the pain prickled, and it was tiny, like moving a numb muscle in the cold, and then it started to shock him in little spurts. Tails felt the momentum producing wind, meaning that he was getting to the speed he needed to.

_I just need enough speed to soften my fall. Please, for the love of the Gods._

Pain lanced through his spine and for a second, he felt the world go completely silent as the continuous _thump, thump_ of his rotating tails registered in his ears.

"Ah!" he cried, as the pain started to spread to his back and legs. He forced his eyes to stay open, even as his tails started throbbing with the effort.

_**"****YES! KEEP GOING, FOX-TROT!"**_

A kilometre from the ground, his tails were rotating like helicopters once again. It hurt like Hell, but he could feel his descent slowing down. Meters from the ground now, he knew it was going to be a rough landing, but at least he wasn't going to die in the impact.

He hit the ground with a rough thump, tumbling and rolling to a stop a few meters away from his board. The stadium was absolutely silent as he staggered up, limping to his gear in what was absolute agony, taking a few seconds to regain his breath before picking up his Gear and checking that it hadn't been damaged. The entire scene unnerved him. Weren't they going to talk?

He looked behind him to check that his tails were still intact. They looked fine. Of course, it hurt really badly, but the pain wasn't hindering any other part of his body in a catastrophic way**(v)**.After a few more steps, he started to steady his stance once more, and then he followed up a confident trot by throwing his board down and leaping back on, stepping on the thrusters once again.

He hit the air accumulator at the right time this time round, letting it go right before the edge of the next ramp, gaining an S-ranked trick with two barrel rolls and a backflip. The stadium was rocked out of its trance and the air erupted with a cacophony of screaming. He heard the odd 'boo' but most of them were cheers, and this included the incredibly excited Omochao.

_**"****_L_adies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed a near death experience. It's a known fact that Fox-trot was almost put out of commission for his tail injury, but he's turned what was sure to spell certain doom into an opportunity, using his two tails to soften his fall."**_

He saw a spy drone after the next jump, and he felt cocky and confident enough to give it thumbs up. As he entered the underground cabin again, he used this time to figure out where he was in the standings. It seemed that Honey/MR had passed him while he was still in the air.

When the realisation of what had happened dawned on him, he hopped off his board immediately and tried to shake the unconscious Flying Frog from his position splattered against the turn before the rising tunnel.

Flying Frog's dilated eyes focused on him for a split second before he coughed out a rhyme.

_"This race is filled with rotten eggs.  
>That girl has gone and broke my legs."<em>

Tails shuddered as he realised what had happened, and the sickening angle that Flying Frog's legs were positioned now. She's broken his calves. Clean breaks. Gross. How could Honey do something like this?

_**"****_W_hile everyone was focusing on Fox-trot, it seems MR and the Yagyu representative were busy taking out the rest of the competition."**_

He was trying to think of something to do when he was pushed aside for the medical team to handle the problem. One of them pushed him back onto his Extreme Gear and told him to keep racing. He was utterly shocked by what they'd said.

He reached the starting line a second time, seeing MR/Honey dawdling right before the finish line. He curved into a slow stop, not really caring that he should have been finishing the race.

"Why would you _do_ something like that?" his tone was filled with disgust and mortification.

"Dark Master's**(vi)** orders."

_"What?"_

"He said 'Eradicate any threat towards your safety', and Flying Frog was one of them. Arielle is taking out the rest of them," she said this in a monotone, a dead, creepy voice that scared him.

"WHAT?"

"Everyone in this race is a danger to your safety. They must all be mobilised."

He shook his head, giving her a look of absolute contempt before hopping onto his board again. Why were Arielle and Honey protecting him? Who was the Dark Master? Why were they hurting all the other competition?

_**"****_T_he Yagyu representative is burning through the other players. So far, MR has stopped on her second lap right before the finish line. It seems that after her little chat with Fox-trot, she seems content to stay behind. Fox-trot is the only racer to have started the final lap."**_

This didn't feel right. His races never really felt right. It was always a mix between glory, and some terrible emotion that was a mix between anxiety and dread.

**"_What is this? It looks like the players in seventh, sixth and fifth place have all fallen down in succession. What sorcery is this? They all seem to be clutching their ears in pain? Someone should get another medical team in there." _(vii)**

_Wait a second…_ he thought as he neared the underground cavern again, speeding through the rising tunnel and picking up one of his favourite nanomite weapons; the spark plug , _if she's taken out everyone except for MR and myself… that means the only one left is…_

_"JET!"_

Tails yelled, just as the ermine caught up to the rogue. MR and Arielle had an advantage over the competition, thus making them incredible racers; they weren't afraid of pain. They weren't afraid of death. He had to drill that into his head as he brought the chord forward and threw it in Arielle's direction. It had been intended to shock her, but the electricity coursing through her body didn't even faze her.

Instead, he switched to negative vision and disabled her Extreme Gear by muddling up the wires and telepathically pulling some out of place. Her Gear spluttered to a stop and threw her off the board. She tumbled across the track, and he slowed down just in case she needed some help, forgetting for a second that she was actually dead. Her mask had fallen off in the collision, so she decided to give it up and pull her hood down as well.

There was a shocked sound from the audience when she revealed her face, blinking at the scenery once. Tails was once again shocked by her beauty, but slightly used to it by now, he wasn't as shocked as Jet.

"If I wasn't under orders to protect you, I would have wrung your neck by now," she growled darkly, standing with grace and an aloof aura about her, even as the Egg Dome guards started to surround her from the hidden entrances in the track. "Go on, shoo. I've got other missions to handle and a date at five o'clock."

_**"****Well, this is embarrassing. Apparently that wasn't really the Yagyu representative. The real one was found tied up in the closet next to the Player's Room."**_

Tails rolled his eyes, knowing this was going to be one of the most controversial races so far. He caught up with Jet on the last stretch of the race, not really worrying about the standing in the races. MR was gone, but Omochao hadn't announced her winning, so maybe she was in a different part of the track.

When he crossed the finish line in second place that day, but he didn't think he'd ever felt so undeserving.

* * *

><p><em>Hearts a Mess <em>by Gotye

* * *

><p><em><strong>"<strong>**Shadow of Black Arms, first place! But it's not like we were expecting anything less of the second in command for the best mechanic in the city."**_

The hedgehog sighed, rolling his neck and waiting for the tension releasing little pops on bone and easing muscle. Now that his race was over, he immediately started working out a strategy of getting rid of those obnoxious reporters. He collected his winnings and placed the ring credit cards in his wallet, moving back into the Player's Lounge.

The mechanic threw a brief glance at the storage closet where the original competitor for the Yagyu Clan had been, wondering what had become of the impostor. Shadow had to admit that the woman on the screen had seemed fairly familiar… more than that actually. In the recesses of Shadow's mind, he could feel himself remembering small facts about her he knew he shouldn't have. When he saw her, he could recall flashbacks; of life in Downunda Academy, of sparring with an elderly man, of speaking to a young white fox he couldn't recall now. It was all very surreal. What perplexed him more was the fact that Tails seemed to know who this woman was.

He helped himself to a mini-fridge they'd installed for this section of the race. Pulling out two bottles of water, he was about to sit down and listen to the news they had on concerning the Prix in between the races, when a suited black cat sat beside him with a camera directed between the both of them.

"This is Sasha Cat**(viii)** reporting live from the Player's Room with Shadow the hedgehog, a representative of Black Arms Garage, the most successful garage in the city. Tell me Shadow," she said, turning her blue eyes towards the relatively uninterested racer, "how did it feel to win the race?"

"Apathetic," he replied in a dead tone.

The cat lowered her eyebrows, giving him a warning glance as if to say, 'You know you're on live television, right?' to which he answered with a look that said, 'I cannot _give_ the damn you want me to'.

He was charming like that. If Shadow could 'lol', he would.

"You've got a signature style that's all your own, don't you?" she asked, tilting her head to the side to coax out a response.

"I guess."

"You're the first one in this competition that's not a Babylon Rogue to make turbulence. That's pretty epic! How much do you practice to acquire that skill?"

"Lots," he could tell she was getting pissed off by his answers.

"How do you feel about the ban of Extreme Gear four years ago?"

Shadow was attacked by a montage of different images; a blazing fire, screaming people, dying people, black-red aliens, unrecognisable technology, a beautiful blond girl, an elderly purple swallow, Rouge… eighteen years old, a vestige in the sky, a lab that felt like a home, a cage, and a golden hawk with a bright red cape.

"It's idiotic," he muttered, trying to shake away the pictures… or were they memories? Did they belong to him?

_What an odd question._

"How long have you and Fox-trot been friends?"

"Four years."

"Well, you have certainly built up the tough persona we've always expected from Tails' stoic companion," she was lilting her voice, going for the dramatic tone that he'd recognised from some of Rouge's television shows. "Is there anything you can say to your viewers, your fans, about the _real_ Shadow the hedgehog?"

He paused a moment, raising an eyebrow at the reporter and not giving any regard for the camera before sighing and leaning forward so he had his elbows on his knees. "Well, to be honest Sasha; I build up this tough, uncaring exterior because, inside, I'm very afraid of getting hurt."

Sasha widened her eyes, touched by the way that Shadow spoke softly and breathily, that sometimes his words cracked and wobbled, how his sad ruby eyes looked down at his wringing hands. She reached forward and placed his hands in hers, "Please, tell us more."

"I've been burned before," he answered all too readily. "I've put my heart in hands that spat on it and crushed it underneath her heels." He placed a hand over his eyes, shivering a little.

"Really?" she murmured, placing a hand on Shadow's shoulder to comfort the hedgehog that was breaking down.

Suddenly, he snapped his head up and smirked at her, "Not really. I sold my heart on the Black Market and used the money for prostitutes."

Sasha snapped her hand back, growling in disgust while her cameraman laughed. The reporter sent a quick glare at the man before turning back to the camera. "And there you have it, more insight from the enigma that is Shadow the hedgehog." She said her next sentence through gritted teeth, "We'll be rooting for you in the next race."

"No you won't," the hedgehog replied, grinning, actually fairly happy he'd flipped the metaphorical bird against the gossip shows on television. Now they'd probably learn not to interview him from now on, or learn to send someone gutsier and less proper in Sasha's stead. With that, he bowed and took his leave, waiting for Tails and Jet to finish their interviews. Tails' was the longest, but it was only because the fox was too nice and didn't know how to subtly say 'Fuck off' to the news community. He couldn't even say it normally.

Shadow could understand why; Tails needed his reputation, it was the only thing stopping him from getting beaten up on the streets: supporters. He was also a key element leading the resistance. He'd become a symbol of hope for all the mutants throughout Soleanna, so he needed to act accordingly. Tails was perfect for that. He displayed the tainted innocence of a child that grew up without family because of someone else's selfish actions, but he also conveyed the ferocity and intelligence of mutant born.

Shadow actually felt pride for being friends with such an important figure. Though sometimes, said important figure's niceness got on his nerves. Like now.

"So, the rumours about you and Wave of Babylon aren't true?" Omochao asked, completely unnerving the fox. Shadow was watching him with a kind of sadistic glee, like watching a sibling trying to worm out of a difficult situation.

Shadow stiffened, _How… How do I know what that feels like? I shouldn't recognise that emotion… it feels foreign and familiar at the same time. Did I… Have I just become so attached to those at the Black Arms, that I think of them as family… or did I have some kind of family before I lost my memory?_

The black hedgehog felt an odd sense of longing, an emotion that threatened to consume him. Never had he felt so lonely before. There was a pang, an ache in his chest that was starting to become clearer. He'd felt it for years, silently suffering, but as the memories started to come back, the pain started to become more intense, and suddenly he was a child, young and scared and alone.

He associated the pain with a voice, a sweet young voice. There were other sounds too, there was running, there was shoes –maybe leather, soft leather- on hard steel, on rubber, running, quickly through a maze. There were images too. Of a corridor made up of machinery, of blinking lights blaring red, and washing away the blue and white and black of the stars. The word 'Ark' reverberates in his head. 'Colony' sometimes follows after it… though to him it doesn't sound right. There's a name for the girl, with bright blue eyes, and blond hair, but he can't remember what it is. Sometimes he can feel himself sounding out her name, but his brain is too fogged up so the spiking pain stopped him from remembering what he was trying to say.

It's a bittersweet feeling. When he sees the girl, he thinks of happiness and warmth, of feeling loved and cherished, but when he remembers the background that they're in, he remembers pain and judgement, loneliness and outrage. He remembers being caged. It scares him.

_But… what kind of place is like that? A research facility? _

He desperately wanted to know who the blond girl in his memories was. He could remember her at different intervals; five years old, thirteen, sixteen, possibly twenty, but she never went beyond that. He longed to know who she was, more than anything.

He knew this was why he needed to win the Grand Prix, because when he thought of her, he thought of Eggman; it was an automatic association. The association also came with another name, a name he hadn't remembered until someone had whispered it in his ear: _Gerald._

Who was Gerald?

There was another strong sense of emotion associated with this man. He was a trigger word. Rouge said so, because the last time someone had uttered the name around Shadow; the entire track had collapsed in a powerful explosion of chaos energy. The white bat said she had nicknamed the attack four years ago; she called it Chaos Blast**(ix)**. The effects of the name were so catastrophic, and Shadow had felt so many emotions coursing through him when he heard the name, whispered in his ear by the Argus vigilante, that he'd summoned the power inside him and destroyed a large portion of the racing course. Because of the name being said at that that precise moment, he'd unintentionally killed four people.

He felt horribly guilty about their deaths, but sending flowers to their families anonymously just didn't seem to cut it. He wanted to find out about this weird power that he didn't access to before, but he felt like learning about such a destructive force would be… betraying the lives of the people that he had killed.

The hedgehog had confessed to Rouge and she seemed almost surprised to hear Shadow say something like this. She seemed thankful, and then rather sorry for him. She said he shouldn't dwell on things like that. There was nothing he could have done otherwise to stop what had happened. A trigger word was a very powerful thing.

Trigger words were… well they were triggers. They were mostly associated with memory erasers. Memory erasers knew that sometimes it was good to keep a memory, even if you couldn't access them. They didn't really 'erase' memories, per se; they simply hid them away where you wouldn't be able to find them very easily. They were like passwords to a missing section of a database. If you didn't have the right trigger word, you wouldn't be able to unlock the content.

Rouge said that once the Black Advent was over, it was mandatory for all GUN personnel that were involved in the final battle which forced Eggman into hiding to get their memories erased because the psychological trauma would scar them, and they'd have to stop serving as agents if that were to happen.

She also said that there was a password to unlocking the rest of Shadow's memories, but since everyone he was ever involved with had their memories erased as well, no one could remember it. The only chance he had of regaining his memories was to find the files only Eggman had access to about Project Shadow.

So far, they'd been able to unlock sections of Shadow's memory. Words like 'Black Arms', 'GUN' and 'Extreme Gear' had been unlocked before the Grand Prix started. While Rouge had been with him, words like 'Rouge', 'Academy' and 'Topaz' had unlocked more of his past. Accidental phrases, like when Tails said 'Resistance is futile', when Jet told him about 'Quill', or when Caleb mentioned 'Selina'**(x) **freed characters he felt extremely guilty over forgetting. Actually, freeing the word 'Arielle' also unlocked sections of Caleb's past that Shadow could now remember, but _Caleb_ could not… it was very odd.

He wondered what kind of word would be able to unlock something he had been working so hard to find.

"Shads?" Tails was suddenly waving his hand in front of the hedgehog's face. "We going back now?"

He shook his head and nodded, "Yeah. We're going to drop you off and then me and Jet need to… do stuff."

He narrowed his eyes, turning his head, "What kind of stuff?"

"GUN stuff, Armada stuff. We're just going to make sure you're safe with someone else before we head off," Jet supplied, shooing off some reporters and making their way out of the Player's room.

Around thirty minutes later, they were heading into GUN Headquarters and everyone was crowding around a brown-haired woman sitting at one of the main computers.

"According to that monitor, he's just finished pissing off one of the best news reporters in the city," Rouge stated, patting the human's shoulder. "After he drops off Fox-trot, he and Jet'll be here."

"'Sup?" Jet announced, "You called."

The hedgehog locked eyes with the familiar blue ones of the brown-haired human, and her face broke into a huge grin, "Shadow!"

He furrowed his eyebrows and frowned at the woman before Rouge stepped in between them, "You remember Topaz, right?"

_"Topaz?"_ he exclaimed in shock as she slipped out of the chair and bent down to give him a hug, which he returned with a reassuring squeeze. The memories flooded back instantly, it was like someone had injected the information into his brain. Topaz Rogers**(xi)** had been in charge of their unit during Black Advent. There was another montage of images, this time featuring the woman in front of him; giving him ammunition, covering fire for him while he attacked, arguing with Rouge and Leilani over something he didn't understand, speaking with a strange red-headed man (who, freakily enough, reminded him of Welshscot), helping to drag him through the streets while he was severly injured, telling a much younger Chris off for being impulsive and sitting down and offering a very battered Shadow some food.

"Rouge explained the situation to me, and Leilani filled in the rest. How is your memory?"

"Incomplete."

"Oh, you haven't changed," she laughed, looking genuinely happy. Shadow felt relief at the comment. So even though he couldn't remember who he was, he was still the same _personality_ wise. "Leilani and Selina's son have found the co-ordinates for Eggman's base in the forbidden zone. They're just breaking the code."

"Code?" he questioned. "Yes, she was the kind of person that would do that."

He was surprised by his own words. Did he even _know_ Selina well enough to comment like that? More flashes, this time featuring the strange woman, decorated not with paint, but with blood. She had white fur, black hair, and he could remember she was very good with her hands- good aim, great with knives, left handed- like Caleb. This memory overload was giving him a headache.

A group of people were surrounding the desk near the computers where the documentation and newspapers were often kept. Caleb was shuffling around some papers and sipping at a small green bottle filled with aloe vera, twisting a knife in his hands before slicing the side of a painting.

"How do you know it's this one?" Jet asked. The hawk was between the other Rogues, who had been here since they'd intentionally failed their races.

"The last clue said 'he will drown in time', and this picture has the picture of a man in an hourglass," he explained, tracing the sides of the exquisite piece. "This isn't one of her best ones, all of the colours are muddled up."

"It looks fine to me," Rouge declared, raising an eyebrow, "worth a few hundred rings I'll take it."

The brown fox shook the painting, but nothing fell out but a single note. He held it up, but it only said one cryptic message.

_He lies within grasp, but the sands of time are an ocean filled with different shades, undetectable unless desired._

"The _fuck?_" Shadow swore, grasping the note. "It's a bust, how are you meant to understand this? Are you sure she wasn't just screwing this one up so that she could side-track someone?"

Caleb slowly shook his head, trying to understand his mother's words.

"Don't we have a code cracker around here?"

"I'm a decrypter," Chris said, pushing in between the agents, looking over the portrait and then at the note. Shadow watched as the teen drummed his fingers against the table, waiting for him to say something. He inspected the painting closer, before looking at the note once again. "Alright, if you're absolutely sure she's speaking about Eggman's base, I'm guessing that she means that 'in his grasp' probably means the hand of the man clawing at the edge of the hourglass. Meaning the rest of the painting is…"

"It's a map?" Rouge exclaimed, tilting her head.

"It is a map," Chris nodded, "I can't get beyond that though, I mean, maybe… shade has something to do with… morals? Black, white and all shades of grey?"

"Chris and I'll try to figure it out, you best tell Jet about the Armada," Caleb ordered them, shooing everyone else from the table.

"What about the Armada?" the leader of the Babylon Rogues looked alarmed as Wave and Storm escorted him over to one of the huge monitors. Shadow followed them, alarmed when a live image of the Armada's huge battle ship came into focus.

"It's coming closer. At the rate they're going at –no holds barred- they're going to be here within a month," Wave explained to them, pointing to the city at the back of the camera. "That's Station Square. Whenever they send someone to ask what the Armada are doing, they push them away. Since, technically, they aren't doing anything wrong, and simply passing through, GUN is obligated to leave them alone. This is why we need to break into the base _now!_"

"Why is it so urgent again?" Shadow questioned, narrowing his eyes, "You said that the Key to Babylon Garden is safely thousands of meters underground. Why is it necessary to send men into a suicide mission to get inside?"

"Don't you want to know what Eggman is planning?" she cried, but it was obvious to Shadow that there was another reason she desperately wanted inside. The swallow's eyes were frantic, as if she was losing something more than knowledge in her pursuit of Eggman's secrets.

"As much as anyone, but we have to be cautious about this."

Wave took a huge shuddering breath and tried to calm down. Storm placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly as Jet took over, "Listen. Egghead has got something that's going to burst out and bite us in the backside once the Grand Prix is over, don't you want to know what it is? Isn't a little recon worth saving a few lives?"

"What is it you really want?" Rouge asked them, narrowing her eyes as well. Not surprising, the bat could smell bullshit from miles away.

"Do you want to know the real reason?" Wave asked bitterly, plugging in her memory stick into the computer, "Fine." She brought up her files and then opened a picture of Blaze's Extreme Gear, the one that had a monitoring/tracking device in it. "Shadow and Rouge have already reported that the Gear designed for Lady Violet has the Eggman Logo on it**(xii)**, and upon better inspection, was revealed to have a monitoring device inside**(xiii)**. What they didn't know, was that the gear was created by my grandfather."

"Your grandfather works for Eggman?" Chris asked, earning a head-thwack on Topaz' part.

"No, you _idiot,_ my grandfather is a Babylonian mutant, of course he doesn't work for Eggman. He's being held hostage. I have some proof that Heartnet gave me a little while after the first aloe heist**(xiv)**," she replied clicking on a media file on her device.

There was a gulp, and then a rough, elderly voice came on, _"Hello? Hello? Who did you say this was for again?"_

Shadow couldn't help but think this man's voice was _incredibly _familiar, as was the voice that followed. They couldn't be more people from his past, could he?

"Oh my god," Rouge gasped, "It's _Cirrus_**(xv)**_!_ Shadow! Wave's grandfather is Cirrus! Why didn't we see the resemblance? They're even more obvious than Jet and Quill."

Shit. More memory explosions.

_**"****Selina's son. He's the connection to your little girl."**_

The second voice was robotic, artificial, but his voice rose and fell like that of a living creature. Shadow and Rouge looked at each other, instantly recognising the voice. He was so surprised he almost called out, but the bat looked like she was about to choke on her own tongue. Damn. He'd wait until the end of the recording to panic.

_"Good. Good. What do I say? When will this get to her? How long have I been here?"_

_**"****For as long as I have; around four to five years."**_

_"My, my. She'd be around eighteen or nineteen by now. Well I must hurry before the guards come back."_

_**"****Good idea."**_

_"I'm alive, Wave. This good fellow says we're in Eggman's base. I'm restricted to two areas; my cell and the production floor." _The old voice heaved in a huge sigh._ "I'm sorry, honey, and to Jet and Storm. Quill is dead, and he lost the Key around the excavation site where the Fallen Ange-Seraph –sorry, he never did like me calling him 'angel'- landed around fifty years ago. I'm probably off by a few years. If you could get that information to Jet's mother, that would be great, but if it's going to give you up to the Armada, don't bother. I can't give that stupid woman the benefit of the doubt."_

Shadow was starting to see memories again, but these ones were slower than the ones associated with other trigger words. The two voices combined together were showing him more scenes of death, of a robot that was decorated black, red, and yellow, plus an elderly man holding out Shadow's first Extreme Gear to him; Darkness.

_"God, I'm starving. You don't know how lucky you are, Omega, not having to eat."_

_OMEGA! _

Shadow's mind erupted with more memories, all surrounded with a tinge of red or black to them. He panicked, the migraine developing started to split his head open with the overload of information. He couldn't process this. There was fire, there was always fire. There were bullets and flamethrowers, there were bodies and screaming, there were injections and walking dead, there were soldiers and aliens, there were Chaos Emeralds and golden hawks, there were old swallows and little children, there was Extreme Gear and machine guns, there were reassurances and insanity, there was a man with red hair, walking towards him with a gun in hand, there was Leilani, but her eyes were flooded with red, there was Topaz, screaming and weaponless in a corner, there was Rouge, saying 'It's just a scratch' but he could see that her ribs were broken, one of her ears were torn and there was a large gash on the side of her stomach. Then there was the robot, but he could see himself holding a gun up to his head.

"This… this is far too much to handle," Shadow groaned, clutching his head.

Rouge shushed him, rubbing his temple with her fingers gently and turning her attention back to the recording.

_"Anyway, Eggman is forcing me to make Extreme Gear. I'm not using my own designs, or that of Quill's, I'm just copying the Armada's tech. If you find one with the logo on it, destroy it immediately. There are tracking devices and recording chips on all of them! I haven't been clued into what's happening, but my only guess is that it requires a __**lot**__ of rings."_

_**"****We're running out of time, it would be a good idea to tell them where to find us."**_

_"Well, I don't know the exact location, they gassed us on the way here, and they just shut Omega down. They didn't know you had a chaos emerald in your chest, did they?" _he chuckled, _"But Selina was drawing a hidden map, it's in a painting called 'Lost in Time'. You're going to need a superchromat_**(xvi)**_ to read it though. We only know of three in the resistance; Sealia, she's a girl that works in Selina's old art shop, Nicole the lynx; I believe she's part of the Freedom Fighters and Vanilla Rabbit. She was one of the survivors from the hospital bombing. I hope to Enlil none of them are dead. If you can't get a hold of them, it's a long shot, but I __**think**__ Selina's son is a superchromat. I just hope the boy's father didn't get to him first."_

They all walked back to the picture. Caleb had heard the message and nodded his head, examining the painting once again. Slowly, the painting started to make sense.

"The wobbly shape of the top of the hourglass is about the size of the Egg Dome."

"That would mean," Rouge murmured, "that the other side is a symbol for the Royal Court!"

"But," Topaz interrupted, "how are you supposed to figure out the location of the base? The man's hand in the painting covers the entire forest and half of Soleanna. I don't understand how this is supposed to make sense."

"What are you talking about?" Caleb asked, looking up at the human with confusion, "She's already marked out the sections. There's a different shade of blue for every single district." He pointed from one section of the painting to the other, "This is the Carnivale District, this is where the Black Market is, meaning it's residing over Crisis City Court, and then there's City Escape, there's a large section over here which I think is the huge excavation site now… Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Caleb," Rouge said, in a voice reserved for the clinically insane, "honey, there's nothing there. It's all a bunch of blue."

"What?" he exclaimed, eyebrows furrowing together. "You can't see it?"

Shadow had a light bulb moment, "It must be something to do with the superchromat ability."

Storm was the one that answered to the series of confused murmurs, "What's a superchromat?"

"It's a natural mutant ability, giving someone acute colour vision," Leilani replied, "they can tell between two shades of the same colour, that most people would consider the same shade."

"I never thought that she would pass this ability onto you though, Heartnet," Shadow smirked.

"Why not?" Rouge asked.

"Because ninety-two percent of the time, superchromats are female," Shadow snicked, prompting Caleb to give him the finger.

"I'm going to start separating the districts," he said, reaching for the marker. He started drawing lines on the painting before stopping and looking at all the people that were examining him, "Have I grown another head? Go away."

"Hurry up, Caleb," Leilani said, "it's almost five o'clock. Haven't you got somewhere to be?"

_"One last thing," _Cirrus the swallow murmured, going quiet for a second as footsteps in the background echoed, then he started speaking again, _"you won't be able to find us once you get inside the base. You need a magical pendant for tracking down chaos energy; otherwise any of the technology you need to track us will malfunction."_

"Where are we going to find one of those?" Topaz questioned, shrugging her shoulders.

_"I know this is inconvenient but there is only one known energy tracker we know of. Anything you synthesise just won't be strong enough. There is a huge chance that this will lead you into a dead end, in which case you might have to go in blind. If this mission is too risky, then… I'm telling you not to go at all. I'm starting to outlive my usefulness. I've lived a long life, I just wish I could have seen you kids grow up a little longer…"_

All of the Babylon Rogues were wearing matching looks of utter devastation. Jet was shaking his head, but Wave and Storm looked like they were about to cry.

_"The energy tracker is a blue-ish opal jewel which is attached to feathers of a sort. If I'm correct in my assumptions, it should belong to the nephew of Merlin Prower._**(xvii)**_"_

'Merlin Prower' was another trigger word.

Shadow couldn't take the strain anymore, the pain wracking him from the inside out as his body gave up on him, and he collapsed to the floor.

* * *

><p><strong>(i) Gigan Rocks<strong> is a location in _Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. _Its night time counterpart is **Gigan Device.**

**(ii) **The **Yagyu Clan **is one of the Four Houses, famous for their incredible thieving skills. In this AU, the Four Houses are Chun Nan trained assassins and spies controlled by _Claudel Heartnet._ They were previously under the control of the **Iron King **&** Queen**, until they were both put out of commission. See Ch 29, under the section _Undisclosed Desires_ by Muse.

**(iii) **_MR _are the initials by which the masked racer in the semi-finals goes by. Background research declares that she belongs to the Cult of Argus. Tails believes the racer speaks with the voice of **Honey**, a Freedom Fighter that died during the _Black Advent_ (the time that came after the _Crimson Night_).

**(iv)** See Ch 53, under the section _No Hands (Cover)_ by Neon Hitch. She says, "Because _someone_ doesn't want you dying yet, Foxy. So stay alive for me until then, okay?"

**Fun fact!** _The Trick To Life_ by The Hoosiers is a shared theme song between both _Caleb _and _Arly._ _No Hands (Cover)_ by Neon Hitch is exclusively _Arly's_. _Caleb_ has two other theme songs.

**(v)** After Tails was beaten to a pulp by _MarDean Orbot _in Ch 13, under the section _Message To The World_ by Story of the Year he damaged his tails, threatened with the possibility of never been able to fly again. This was confirmed by _Welshscot_ in Ch 16. He says, "He's stable. His bones still look like smash plates, but ones that are glued back together. The cuts and bruises on his face will leave some scars, some more noticeable than others, but the worst damage is to the base of his tails. There's a seventy percent chance he'll never fly again and even then he won't be able to use his power for months." Tails was told he would need a _minimum_ seventh months to heal, but it's only been three since his accident.

**(vi)** The **Dark Master** is the rumoured head of the _Cult of Argus_. There are very few that have actual contact with him. He has set his sights upon capturing the **Tails Doll **but also become rather pre-occupied with protecting Tails, using _Arielle Truscott _as his bodyguard.

**(vii) **_Arielle_ is a sound elemental. That means that she can produce noises physically impossible without aid, meaning sound with pitches high enough to make your ears bleed. This was proved in Ch 46 where she sent out numerous voice messages to _Mytho, Leilani, Caleb_ and **Rouge **which gave them ear injuries.

**(viii)** I'm using the _Mobius: X Years Later_ **Sasha** instead of the one from Mobius Prime. You don't mind, do you? She isn't a major character.

**(ix) **Shadow used **Chaos Blast** in the third race in _Ice Factory, _somewhere in Ch 48, under the section _Waking Up_ by Julien-K. He destroyed the track, but the murders were blamed on _Eclipse the cat,_ an Argus vigilante (he was really responsible for the fire at Castle Town Orphanage) who snuck a grenade into the race.

**Fun fact! **_Waking Up _by Julien-K was an original song in the _Shadow the Hedgehog Soundtrack: Lost and Found._

**(x) **Tails said "Resistance is futile," in Ch 43 Jet mentioned "Quill," in Ch 36, under the section _Seven Rings In Hand (Fairytales In Trance) _by Bentley Jones. You'll notice that both times, Shadow acts very strangely towards the words.

**(xi) Topaz's** last name comes from _Kayzie Rogers, _her voice actor in Sonic X.

**(xii)** Blaze's Extreme Gear made by 'Eggman' was discovered in Ch 9, under the section _Cooler Than Me_ by Mike Posner.

**(xiii) **The _recording_ device _in _the Gear was discovered in Ch 49, under the section _Decode_ by Paramore.

**(xiv) **In Ch 14 Caleb says, "I'll also be giving you a tape, to prove _he's _alive." Maps and _this_ tape were the bargaining chip for the Rogue's assistance in retrieving the aloe vera in The Aloe Heist in Ch 22.

**(xv)** _Cirrus, _Wave's grandfather, was named after the cloud type.

**(xvi)** Caleb revealed he was a superchromat in Ch 33, under the section _You Kill Me (In A Good Way) _by Sleeping With Sirens. He says, "I'm a superchromat. It's a kind of secondary power I got from my mother… It allows me to distinguish and identify all shades of colours. It sucks though really, it's like living life with your screen on full saturation." Oh, and this power was borrowed from the author **Brent Weeks**, from the amazing book _The Black Prism._

**(xvii) **The necklace that Tails wears around his neck. It was stolen from his mother's dead body after Ch 1 by _Cubot_, but _MarDean _gave it back in Ch 43. In Ch 55, the necklace helped Tails to find one of the Chaos Emeralds underwater, but he didn't know why it was glowing.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

Venting by typing was therapeutic really; I haven't been able to talk all week because I was having a screaming match with my family over The Voice: Australia. I wanted Rachael Leahcar to win so badly. T.T

But yeah, guys. In about two weeks I'm going to start a mass editing spree to get rid of the stories I don't want, and edit everything else. Plus moving stuff to AO3. (I'm still typing up stuff though, it's just going to take longer (~you might want to consider re-reading some stuff (it'll make sense now!)))

**Fun fact! **The referencing took longer than the actual chapter to write.

**ღ**


	58. I Don't Think Life Is Quite That Simple

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Exploder**, **LordCooler**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **HalfWright**, **Hybrid Commander** and **The Loner in the Shadows** for reviewing the last chapter.

Sorry for the wait guys, my mom changed our internet provider and I didn't have access to internet for a while. When we got it back, I had to put my assignments first. I'll be answering all your messages and reviews shortly.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p>'<em>Opportunities fly by while we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone<em>._'_~Jerome K. Jerome, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, 1889

**Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty Eight  
>.<em>  
>"When we are older you'll understand, what I meant when I said 'No, I don't think life is quite that simple'."<br>…_  
><em>_Undisclosed Desires_ by Muse

* * *

><p>"I don't get it."<p>

"You have the emotional capacity of a rock, Storm. Of course you don't get it," she replied, sipping her coffee and flipping the page. When the grey bird leant over the table to look at the article, she simply reached forward and pushed his head back with the heel of her palm.

"What's not to get?" he asked, shrugging. "We haven't found the coordinates. There's no reason to distance yourself from Tails now."

"Heartnet is getting very close." Her responses were getting curter, because she was running out of patience.

"But he's not there yet," he said, "and you always say nothing is true until there is proof." Seriously? The one time she found out Storm actually listened to her, and it was to make sure she lost her argument? Why did the world hate her?

"Why do I need to speak to Tails so badly?" she replied. "I need a clean break."

"Why?"

"Because it's better for him. Haven't you ever read Twili-" she placed her hand over her mouth, face-palming herself. That _one_ time she accidentally picked up one of Caleb's romance novels continued to haunt her… but back to the serious topic.

They were sitting in a café not that far off from the forbidden zone, waiting for Jet to be done with an errand. He was picking up some new communicators, since the old ones didn't have the capacity for the necessary calibrations she was going to perform on them. They needed to be stronger than ever, because communication in this mission was key. If anything fell apart, they should have a way to contact each other. They were also going to have to figure out ways to communicate with each other if technology did fail them. Jet and Wave were fine, because their species were naturally inbuilt with strong vocal chords, so communicating across a distance was never a problem, but Storm's voice was a totally different story all together.

"Storm, it's kind of like ripping a band-aid off, if you do it slowly, it hurts more, doesn't it?"

"As opposed to tearing it off immediately? Are you kidding? It's painful either way." Storm was right, compared to any old regular human, they had _feathers_, and ripping of a band-aid was twice as painful because of it. Was Storm getting at something? Could he possibly implying that separating from Tails would have been more painful because of an element that she wasn't accounting for? Was she reading too much into the situation?

"When is Jet coming? I'm hungry…" she muttered, trying to change the subject. It was making her uncomfortable, and lately, any mention of the young fox made her chest ache. She didn't need to think about him right now. Apparently the world was against her, because his race was all over the newspapers, and no doubt Jet would want to speak about the battle he'd participated in yesterday. She had been watching yesterday, of course she had, but said viewing almost resulted in a heart attack when Tails fell off his board. Wave was ashamed to admit that she'd actually started crying, but when she realised Tails was fine, she wiped away her tears before Storm could see them.

She'd been breaking down a lot lately; she didn't need it to happen again.

Their food was set before them and, lo and behold, Jet appeared at that very moment. It was like he was hard-wired to prevent people from stealing his meals. Despite what most thought, Wave actually stole more food than Storm did, from Jet anyway, because they shared the same taste, especially when it came to muesli and seeds.

"I've got bad news and good news," he announced, blue eyes hooded, "which one do you want first?"

"The good news," Storm answered immediately. They thought differently, Wave wanted to say 'The bad news' but her mouth was full, so she couldn't get it out fast enough.

"Okay. I got the new communicators!" he said, patting his backpack down.

"What's the bad news," Wave said, gulping down her food, failing to keep the apprehension out of her voice.

Jet sighed, "Heartnet was attacked yesterday. He's at Mystic Ruins right now having emergency surgery. He didn't finish outlining the map, so the details are still too foggy to continue."

"What happened?"

"Do you remember how Cesario said he had a date at five? Nobody mentioned the fact that his date was a psychopathic killer who just _happened_ to be his dead ex-girlfriend. I saw the wound, it was pretty bad. It looked like she was trying to behead him, if she went any further, she would have hit the spine vertebrae."

Storm and Wave winced in sync.

"He'll have a hell of a scar once the surgery is done, but he's alive, that's got to count for something," he shrugged, scooping in a spoonful of breakfast.

"So, what's our plan of action boss?" Storm asked.

"Wave, is there any way to get around those robo-snakes in the construction site?"

"None that I can immediately recall, I'll get back to you when I have one."

"Then I have none except 'stay and wait'. Maybe if I win the Grand Prix, I'll find means to get into Eggman's compound. There's got to be a way around his machines from there."

They continued eating quietly until Storm broke the silence with a murmured thought Wave wasn't sure they were meant to hear, "Do you ever think life would be easier if we just didn't leave the academy?"

Jet answered first, "For me? Easier sure, but it's definitely not a life worth living… I mean, constantly having to make decisions, minions running around doing my bidding."

"That doesn't sound different from what you're doing right now," Wave growled through gritted teeth.

The hawk laughed, becoming louder when Storm joined him, "Seriously, it might be awesome living in the lap of luxury, but I would never –and I mean _ever_- work under his lord-mighty douche-face."

"Do you mean High Heels or his son?"

"Both. Take your pick."

High Heels was the nickname everyone at the armada and the academy called Battle Kukku the fifteenth. It was to make fun of his stupid clothing. If it wasn't 'High Heels' it was 'Green Tights' or 'Pirate Hat'.

"I'm also glad I'm not in the armada, I mean, c'mon guys, think about it! I'd probably be married to one of you if we were still there."

Girls in the Battle Bird Armada and the Divine Wings Academy were still considered as second-rate citizens. They didn't have equal rights to boys and were expected to act in a way that was socially acceptable, that's why Wave's tom-boyish attitude was looked down upon while she was there. Girls were married off at fourteen to fifteen years of age.

Now Wave might not have been the most classy of women, but she was certainly beautiful. Men had it in their heads that they could somehow _train_ her to be what they wanted her to be, but it didn't work out. Wave had proven as unbroken as any wild animal, and because of that, her only potential suitors were Jet, Storm, Predator Hawk or –to her surprise- Speedy.

Wave didn't have the grudge against Speedy that Jet did. They fought all the time, but Speedy had been nothing but compassionate to her when she was considered an outcast.

They all released a shudder as they moved onto the next topic, "I'm an orphan, so I've never known what it's like to have siblings," Storm said. "So I knew that wherever you guys went, I'd have to follow."

"Aww," Wave gushed, "I'd totally give you a guy hug if the thought didn't disgust me so much."

"Love you too, Sis."

"There are a few upsides into staying in the armada though," Jet sighed wistfully.

"Uncle Quill would still be alive for one thing…" Wave murmured.

"And Grandpa Cirrus wouldn't be locked up in Eggman's top secret base," Storm added.

"And we wouldn't be running from the armada like fugitives," Jet finished.

"We _are_ fugitives."

They looked at each other before bursting into laughter. "Look at us! Four years ago we were arguing over a packet of gummi worms, and now we're fighting in a civil war," Jet grinned at them, and neither Storm nor Wave could fight off the answering smile.

"You and Storm were fighting over a packet of gummi worms last week. You were even discussing the sexes of such gummi worms, and how lesbian gummi worms might have sex with each other."

"That is totally beside the point!" the green hawk snickered.

"Hey! I remember when I first heard that! I was with Caleb, Silver and… and Tails…" her voice had started out enthusiastic, but had slipped a note and she remember that she had barred herself from seeing her two-tailed friend.

"Wave, Tails is pretty beat up from yesterday's race, maybe you should go see him and make him feel better," Jet suggested.

"No! I-" Wave faltered at the look that both Storm and Jet were giving her.

"We still have much more time on our hands than we should. Make the most of it."

She released a deep sigh, smiling at both her brothers before standing up and scooping her gear. "Thanks guys."

* * *

><p><em>Simple and Clean<em> by Utada Hikaru

* * *

><p>Currently, Tails was fighting with Silver over the remote so that he could turn on the television. Apparently, Tails didn't want to know what was on, but of course, if you tell someone not to see something, they want to see it even more, and Tails' curiosity was murdering him.<p>

"Tails, you're hurt, you should be in your bed _resting!_" Silver growled, grabbing the remote and pulling it towards him.

"I'm going to pretend I don't have the most embarrassing injury in the word for a while! It's already hard enough that my voice is breaking!" The fox brought the controller closer to him, but Silver was still having none of it. His hands started to glow and before he knew it, he was using telekinesis to bring the controller to him.

Tails snarled at him before having a light bulb moment and clicking his fingers. With that, the television turned itself on. Silver growled and used the remote to turn it off. Tails used his technopathic abilities to dislodge the batteries and turned the TV on again. Silver tried to turn it off but it wasn't working, so he used telekinesis to unplug the chord. Tails put it back in again. Silver didn't have the patience for this and simply gave up.

"TV is bad for you."

"Shut up, Silver."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. _Please,_ shut up, Silver."

"When did you get so temperamental?"

"When puberty started."

"_**Fox-trot's last race was one of the most controversial events in the racing season. Authorities have been trying to get a hold of many of those involved in the race to account for what happened but many of the racers have gone missing, and many of the investigators sent to the Black Arms have gone missing. Jet of Babylon was seen this morning, but promptly disappeared as soon as the authorities cornered him in a café."**_

"How have the authorities sent here been dispatched?" Tails murmured.

Silver shrugged, "How would I know?"

"You're not freaked out?"

"Dude, you have some weird guardian angel. How are you not supposed to enjoy that?"

Tails scowled at his friend, furrowing his eyebrows and giving Silver an unimpressed look, "Honestly, Silver. Apparently most of these weird guardian angels are supposedly undead monsters."

Not to mention, one of them had been accused of being his father. And he knew one of them was the supposed girlfriend of one of his friends. And the other had been a girl that Tails had been great friends with four years ago, except that he'd actually _witnessed_ her horrific death. He wondered, did these people get the choice about their existence? Could they kill themselves if they wished?

Tails shook away his thoughts, turning off the television. He made his way onto the rooftops in an attempt to think, looking around to make sure that there weren't any reporters or unexpected guests before sitting near the end, dangling his legs over the edge of the building.

"Don't they get a choice? Who would choose a life like that?"

There was a whoosh noise behind him, and then a soft feminine voice floated in his ears, "No."

He looked over his shoulder. The kitsune saw wavy white hair and just turned back, knowing that he wasn't in any immediate danger. Arly was some kind of protector, wasn't she?

"Am I supposed to be protected from harm, or death?"

"Death," she answered, without any hesitance. She walked up behind him, heels making a soft clack, clack noise. The ermine sat beside him, distributing all the weight on her palms while she leant back. Her hemp bracelets jingled. He snapped his head to them, wondering if it was purely coincidence how both Arly and Caleb wore them. It was weird. Shadow and Rouge, as well as Chris, Ash and Leilani all wore bracelets that looked mildly similar, mostly hidden under their gloves. There was one that he took notice of immediately, because it reminded him of Shadow; it had a red and black design with two small golden rings looped around its body. There was also another one, with a large bead that said 'Nathaniel' on the outside. Some of them had designs that wore Solaris and Argus as charms, and most had bracelets with the GUN insignia on it. Most of them also wore a white hemp bracelet that was also died a sea green at the tips, decorated with charms for music and two blue beads at the end of their ropes. Arly lacked this one though.

"Do you still want to wring my neck?"

"Nah," she waved it off. "It's hard, you know? You remind me of Caleb when he was still twelve."

He was taken aback by the confession. He didn't think he and Caleb had _anything_ in common. Apart from their species, what could they possibly share? A sense of empathy was their only standing point, and Caleb's was artificial.

"Why am I to be protected?" he snapped, suddenly angry with her for being so aloof.

She copied the movement, watching him with curiosity, flashing great big eyes on her, eyelashes flapping like fans as he did so. "I guess the fortune tellers that you go to aren't quite as strong as the Dark Master's, are they?"

"Who's the Dark Master?" he demanded.

She shrugged, still not wavering. He felt uncomfortably under the scrutiny of such a pretty girl. "Even I don't know. I know what he looks like, but I've never heard him called anything else."

He didn't expect her to be so chatty, but he thought he might as well push his luck while he was there. She seemed all too willing to speak anyway, "Why does he need me?"

"You're part of a prophecy, you know that right?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "Knuckles told me it had something to do with Black Wings."

"No, no. I mean a different prophecy."

"What? No…"

"Listen, kid," he frowned at the 'kid' comment, but decided to let it slide, this girl was a few years older than she looked after all, "we have _no_ idea about his deal about protecting you. He just protects any random mutant off the street."

"What? The Dark Master?"

"No," she laughed. "I mean TD. He's protecting you for a reason we can't understand, but the reason Dark Master wants you alive is because you appeared in a prophecy of his. I mean, in the vision they accidentally called you Trevor, but I'm not blind, your picture was in the smoke. Marsali isn't even sure if your involvement is for the good of the Gods or not, but they want to make sure you're alive, just in case."

"Marsali?" he questioned, tilting his head to the side. "What does WelshScot's mother have to do with this?"

"Not just his mom," she tilted her head again, "Welshscot too. Ever notice that there's something not quite right about him?"

"There's something 'not quite right' about _everyone_ born into this City."

It was the first time he'd heard her laugh. She _almost_ sounded like a normal girl. One that didn't snap the necks of her enemies, or sing to make other people's ears bleed. She could be amazing.

"Aren't you scared that your masters are going to punish you for saying so much about their plans?"

She placed her hand before her face and examined her nails, curling her fingers into a fist, "I can't feel fear. I can't feel sorrow. Whatever emotions I know are an echo of what they once were." Arly looked down, muttering her last sentence, "Emotions are useless anyway."

How could she say that, when Caleb was an empath?

"No they're not," he objected, breath coming out as a harsh whisper. "Emotions are a form of communication. They're a source of power so incredible that small individuals can perform amazing feats. They're…"

"They're what it means to be _alive._"

He couldn't argue with her. That was true.

He stood up and she followed him. She stepped onto the edge of the roof with an easy grace, moments from dropping, but he knew that she wouldn't simply fall by accident.

"Oh, by the way, Caleb is suffering from a deep incision in the back of his neck. A few more centimetres and he would have lost feeling in the rest of his body, any more and he would have died."

"So _why_ didn't you?" Tails spat angrily. "Why didn't you kill him when he was at your mercy? Caleb is an amazing fighter, one of the best firearm specialists I have ever seen, proficient in martial arts. But I know you're better. I know you're better than I could ever be alive. Why didn't you kill him? Why didn't you end his suffering?"

She took a few steps along the rooftop, staring at her boots before she looked up and caught the fox's eye, "I have intimacy issues. Love is stupid. I don't believe in it."

Tails froze. Caleb had said the _exact_ same thing on Valentine's Day.

"But the _illusion _of love, even the _echo_ of it, can make you do the most _idiotic_ things." She looked like she was about to jump off the building, "Listen Sweetie, Marsali –the bitch just _loves_ sending me on suicide missions- is sending me to 'talk' to Tails Doll about joining our cause… _again_, so don't die on me while I'm gone, because neither I nor Tails Doll can protect you if you get in trouble," but then she turned around, "Hey Fox-trot?"

"Yeah?" he asked, cautiously.

"Do you know what the symptoms of Neuro Immuno Deficiency Syndrome are?"

He raised an eyebrow, "No?"

She pointed towards Leilani's apartment block across the street, "You might want to ask Shadow. He'll know."

"Why would I want to-?" she watched as she jumped off the roof of the building, but when he looked down from where she had perched, she had already disappeared.

* * *

><p><em>Mouth Shut <em>by The Veronicas

* * *

><p>"I don't like this, Sonic."<p>

"Me either, Ames."

Then again, moving through the Black Market had never really been that safe in the first place. With the sudden spike in aloe vera usage, the demand had become higher, and you could now access the stuff from the Black Market. They needed more for Caleb to heal, and pick up a few bottles for Tails as well.

"Why does Caleb need aloe vera again? I mean, when we left him at Mystic Ruins, he seemed like he was healing up well," the pink hedgehog said, clinging onto Sonic's arm as they weaved through the crowds. Despite what people normally thought, she was actually just making sure they weren't separated instead of clinging because she wanted to. The Black Market was a huge place after all, and she didn't want to end up in the hands of the undesirables. "I don't think he can rely on aloe vera for every single injury he comes across, no matter how severe."

"Rouge and Shadow both said it was more difficult than that," Sonic sighed. He remembered the look they were giving him.

"_Aloe vera? Again? Do you know how expensive that stuff is? Do you know how dangerous it is to get it? Caleb will heal well enough by himself. He doesn't need the drug. There's a difference between 'want' and 'need'."_

"_And he __**needs**__ aloe vera, Sonic. We are perfectly aware of the difference. You cannot fathom this. The situation is more complicated than you might think it is."_

"_It's never easy, but do you have to go for such drastic measures?"_

"_Sonic, do it __**now**__ or I'm getting it myself."_

He didn't want to deal with their twin glares again. Rouge had looked borderline murderous, and Shadow looked like he'd wanted to maim him. And this was all over some snippy guy that didn't know when to shut his mouth.

"I'll just pretend we're getting it all for Tails then," she released a twin sigh, "the stupid fox wouldn't have to deal with these kinds of injuries if he wasn't in the Grand Prix."

"I hear ya, but Tails has made up his mind. I've tried to stop him so many times, but it just doesn't work…" He tugged on her wrist, grinning a little before chuckling, "I'm glad his tails are working again."

She mirrored the smile with one of her own, "Me too."

"Hey, have you and Tails kissed and made up yet?"

They were in the business district of the Black Market now, artificial lights blaring down at them from the dirt ceiling, surrounding by a mass of different crowds. The good thing about being a hedgehog was that people kept their distance. The good thing about being a blue hedgehog, was that people gave you _more_ distance.

"Not yet. I wanted to catch him while he wasn't moving, so he couldn't walk out halfway through the conversation."

"What were you arguing about anyway?"

"He was furious with me because I compared his heroics to yours."

"That's weird. When he was injured the first time, he used my heroics as an excuse to keep going…"

The two hedgehogs stopped and looked at each other, green eyes widened in astonishment,  
>"He two-timed us!"<p>

"Dammit! It sucks to have a little brother that's smarter than you, isn't it?"

"Definitely," she laughed.

"In all honestly, I think you should apologise. He will too, I'm sure of it."

"For what?" Amy murmured, "He was right."

Sonic stretched his arms before grabbing Amy's hand again, this time, he entwined their fingers, "Tails has spent so much time believing that he's worthless, that sometimes, he can forget there are some people that care about him, and would be heartbroken if he died. What he doesn't realise is, if he dies _now_,an entire _nation_ would mourn the loss.

"But it is true. Tails is not doing this for the fame, or the glory, it's because he's sick of living like he doesn't have the right to exist. To live. Not because he's interested in going down in history, which is, most definitely, what he's going to do. There are already people recording down his achievements. They started the moment he signed up for the race."

"He needs someone to fall back on, not tug him by the leash."

"Now you're getting it!"

"I guess…" the pink hedgehog sighed, hoping that Sonic wouldn't catch the next sentence, "I got sick of trailing in the dust."

Unfortunately, Sonic did catch the message, and he stopped immediately, not caring what anyone around them thought of the abrupt blockage. "Amy…" He placed a hand on her neck and it trailed into her soft quills, "We might run ahead, sure, but we will _never_ leave you behind."

"Thanks," she kissed Sonic's cheek, "I needed that."

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

I don't know when I'll be able to get stable connection, so I'll upload when I can.


	59. Laugh At The World You Hold In Contempt

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Guest**, **hades of hell**, **LordCooler**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **Ficfan412**, **Guest (2)**, **Exploder**, **Guest (3)**, **Hybrid Commander**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Subzero Inferno**, **Parkour Master** and **SmallSpek **for reviewing the last chapter.

Important notice at the end guys.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p>'<em>The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always.' ~R.D. Laing<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Fifty-Nine  
>.<em>  
>"It's crazy. You think you're safe. You laugh at the world, that you hold in contempt. Way too clever, to fall in this trap. You are deluding yourself."<br>…_  
>The Consequence <em>by You Me At Six

* * *

><p>The bright Solean sun beat down on him like a tribal drum beat, ebbing, like the rays were coming closer, enveloping him in a blanket of smouldering heat. The noise of machinery filled his ears and drowned out the static of his radio with white noise, the soft murmur of his turned-on gear underneath a light blue flannel and his discarded white tank top. Tails was balanced precariously on one of the highest points of Soleanna.<p>

He was practicing his moves on one of the abandoned construction sites. These were built into the mountains that surrounded the borders of Soleanna, leading further into the mainland, so it was incredibly high, adorned with cranes, diggers, lifts and machines that were designed for scanning the mineral content of anything found. There were small slivers of electricity running through the platform, but he was sure these machines weren't working anymore. Besides, they'd need permission from the master controls to move anything. Tails had climbed the site's supports embedded into the mountain face using the anti-gravitational controls on his Extreme Gear, and now he was surrounded with the rest of the mountain, the very high construction structures built into this particular part of the site, and the platform, that of which could result in his death if he fell from the ends.

He could see _all_ of Soleanna from here.

Tails stretched a little, having been practicing against an imaginary foe all throughout midday. He needed some time to himself to think, and none of his friends were available for a spar. He needed to get away from the Black Arms for a little while, so he came here. It was a place that Cosmo had shown him four years ago when the construction site had once been lush forest. This mountain top was where he'd fallen in love with her, but now it looked like a desolate wasteland.

The kit that had come here four years ago was also starry-eyed and innocent, now he was fourteen years old and had seen things he couldn't un-see. He'd experienced pain beyond measure, had his hopes and dreams crushed multiple times, and endured heartbreak. But what had he become? Tails looked out over Soleanna as he contemplated this, dangling his legs off the main platform. It wasn't even his intention, but according to the news –even the broadcasted TV controlled by Omochao- he'd become the face of the revolution, one that was going to overthrow Eggman. It was now, in these moments of doubt, that he wondered how he was actually going to do that.

Did he really think he could get this far in the competition, if he didn't even have a plan?

What was he _thinking_ in his subconscious, when he signed up for the Grand Prix? He had been so blinded with rage**(i)** that he didn't think out a strategy. And now… now what was he meant to do? An entire nation expected him to do something. His friends assumed he had a plan up his sleeves… shoot, what was he going to do if he won? Should he even begin to hope he could achieve the impossible?

Tails stood up again, feeling the wind rushing through his fur. He put his tank top back on and placed his flannel in the glove compartment of his air ride, pushing his goggles to rest on his forehead as he listened to the inbuilt radio. As he listened, he fought to close the compartment, when it finally did, his flannel was half sticking out of the contraption and he tugged violently at it, getting ever more infuriated with his machine as it refused to give up the piece of clothing.

"_The Grand Prix's officials have released the sequence for the next races online, along with player statistics and interviews. The largest betting pool for the next race between the Shinobi representatives: Liza the chameleon and Jet of Babylon starts in three hours. The race will be taking place in three days."_

_What?_ Tails thought curiously, turning the volume for the radio up higher and giving up on the epic battle to win his flannel against the evil glove compartment.

"_That's right! The next round consists of twelve one-on-one races between the final competitors. A process of elimination will be used until they're narrowed down to a last three-way showdown to prove who really __**is**__ Soleanna's Air Rider Champion."_

He pulled his phone out of the glove compartment and ran around the platform frantically holding the device up like an offering to the gods. He stomped his foot angrily when he realised he couldn't get reception. He wouldn't be able to find out who he was racing against in the next round! He needed to start preparing immediately.

Little did Tails know that his combat techniques would be put to the test sooner than he expected.

A shing and peal cut through the heat and quiet like a hot knife through flesh, sharp and pronounced. Another followed the sound seconds after, blasting in a deadly staccato faster than Tails could say 'bullets'. He pressed himself to one of the structures reeling in his Extreme Gear through the flannel that was sticking out of the glove compartment, quickly reverting it into its board mode.

"It's _huntin'_ time Fox-trot."

_Great. Assassins! That was __**just**__ what I needed right now. Solaris, is it too much to ask for __**one**__ day without a catastrophe?_

He recognised the voice, funnily enough; he'd heard it when he was very young. There were a few people surrounding him, but the ring leader definitely had a familiar, sinister vocal quality. It was _so_ damn familiar, where had he heard it before? There was another laugh, and he recognised another voice, this time belonging to… dammit… He _thought_ it might have been the guys that were withholding his Extreme Gear after the second race. What were their names? One was… Sleuth? And the other? Simian? Simon?**(ii)**

"_Tick-tock. Tick-tock.  
>Time's running out you stupid little fox."<em>

_Flying Frog. Awesome. Is there anyone else I should have been aware of?_

"When you do find him, I want to pull the first punch."

"Not if I get to him first."

_That's Predator Hawk. And the second one was probably Lightning Lynx. But who was the first one?_

"Are you seriously afraid of a twelve-year-old? Go out and find him, you wusses. I'll catch him when he makes a break for it."

"That gun is bigger than you, weasel, are you sure you can catch him?" Lightning Lynx joked. Tails tapped a finger to his lips. Weasel? Big guns… what were big… _Crap!_ _Nack the weasel!_

Or was it Fang the Sniper? The guy had two aliases, but Tails was pretty sure it was the same person. Maybe.

He couldn't believe he was being sarcastic at a time like this! He should have been scared shitless. Hmm… Why wasn't he then? Of course, Tails was nervous, but normally when confronted with something like this, he should have been scared out of his fur. Was all the near death encounters and plunging head-first into danger scenarios making him impervious to fear? That couldn't have been good. He would have to make sure he was still evaluating the danger of the situation properly, or else he would end up getting hurt, like Sonic whenever he plummeted into danger without thinking. Huh, and Amy thought he was trying to be like Sonic- ha, she couldn't have been more wrong.

Nack was notorious as one of the best shooters in _all_ of Soleanna, specialising in nearly all projectile weapons and currently under Claudel Heartnet. Did that mean Caleb's dad was trying to kill him too? Then again… Scourge had mentioned that Tails had a bounty over his head now**(iii)**. Being the Destructix, they were probably just after the cash.

_Still_ _not a great way to die!_ his somewhat frantic mind informed him. And it was true. When did he forget things like that?

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Nack sung, in a way that sent shivers up Tails' spine, making the fur on the back of his neck prickle. He heard one of the Destructix' footsteps coming closer to the small control centre he was hiding behind, pressing himself up against the wall as if it would decrease his visibility. Okay, he needed to come up with a plan of action. It was obvious these men wanted to harm, or even kill him. All of them had motive, and two of them had more than one. Namely, broken legs and such. How had Flying Frog healed so fast? Maybe aloe vera was becoming easier to access? Maybe the wrong kind of people were getting to it as well.

Okay, so, if he wanted _any_ hope of surviving, he was going to have to disarm Nack, because even if he ran away now, there was nowhere to hide down the mountainside, and he had no doubt that Nack could shoot him down. Tails and his board against the brown sand at the edge of the construction site was as noticeable as a chocolate bar in a swimming pool. He could probably fend off Predator Hawk during the getaway, but he was sure the rest of them wouldn't be able to touch him if he was careful.

Tails looked up at the sun, and got a _brilliant _idea! He would use the sun to his advantage. He just needed to locate where Nack was. Unfortunately, guns didn't use electricity, so he wasn't able to pinpoint his location through Negative Vision. Tails would have to do it the old fashioned way, by sneaking around like a ninja, which was really hard where there was only random instruments and forgotten machinery around, and it was in broad daylight.

He slithered around the control room and hid behind some boxes, pressing his ears to his head so that they didn't give him away. He found some tarp right next to the boxes and hid his Extreme Gear underneath it, wondering which structure he could climb without being too noticeable. Nack was slowly circling the edge of the site, and would be upon the control booth soon. This was perfect timing. If Tails could simply… He needed to climb to the top of the control booth without making a sound.

Stealth… bloody stealth. It had been one of the elements of the self-defence training Rouge had been willing to teach him, because she said it might come in handy. Tails had declined, wondering when he would _ever_ need it. He noted that if he survived, he'd see if the offer was still open.

The fox chanced a glance up over the crates he was hiding behind. Most of the Destructix were looking over the edge of the platform, while Lightning Lynx was nearest to the mountain, inspecting another piece of forgotten machinery. Sergeant Simian was accompanying Nack, so Tails deduced he was probably going to have to duck away from the purple weasel as fast as physically possible.

"How did you find the runt anyway?" Sleuth Dawg questioned Fang, and Tails used the distraction to grasp onto the broken window of the control station and vault himself onto the top of it, pressing himself as close to the roof of it as he could to decrease his visibility.

"I overheard some idiot GUN cadet speaking about Prower possessing a crystal that had a similar energy signature to Chaos emeralds."

"Chaos emeralds aren't real."

"Yes they are. I'm sure that stupid kid is around here somewhere."

_GUN cadet?_ Tails thought, eyes narrowing when he thought of who it probably was… _Thorndyke._

He thought about the necklace he was wearing around his neck, tucking it into his shirt and wondering exactly how weird this strange gem was when Nack started to get closer and closer to the control station's roof. Tails' back was facing the sun, and that's why he'd chosen this position. He breathed in, and then out, before he leapt from his vantage point.

"Ah _fuck!_ My eyes!"

Tails' sudden appearance stunned them for a couple of precious seconds, giving him enough time to land a solid hit on Nack's wrists, prying the rifle from his hands and tossing it off the platform to the endless dunes below. To his horror, Predator Hawk started diving off the platform after the weapon, but he had other problems to deal with right now.

He dodged one of the anvils Sergeant Simian tried to pass off as fists by a hairsbreadth, tumbling into backwards roll and skidding into a crouch, bouncing to the side when Lightning Lynx aimed a punch at his head. He used his tails as a shield to fend off Flying Frog's kicks, allowing the pain to phase through him as he searched the skies for Predator Hawk. He saw that Sleuth Dog had a pistol on him as well and almost froze. He grabbed hold of Lightning Lynx's neck, using a paralysing trick that Shadow had taught him to render him limp.

"Shit! I can't move!" he panicked, while Tails used him as a shield from the armed Sleuth Dog and the purple weasel.

"Don't shoot, or your comrade gets killed," he warned them, eyes narrowing as he waited for them to lower their weapons. To his surprise, they didn't.

"Guys!" Lightning Lynx exclaimed, "Put your freakin' weapons down!"

Nack's eyes glinted with bloodlust, but he didn't put the smaller firearm down, "You know, if I shoot the lynx, then he won't be able to use him as a bargaining chip anymore."

"_Seriously?"_ the lynx cried in distress. "Put the fucking gun down!"

Sleuth hadn't put his gun down either, but he didn't seem nearly as prone to shooting his team mate as Nack was. The weasel flipped the safety, closing one of his eyes as if he was lining up the shot.

"Oh fuck. Oh _fuck!_"

Tails' heart wrenched. He couldn't believe how badly Nack wanted this money. He was willing to kill someone that wasn't his bounty over it. It was sickening.

"Okay Nack, put the gun down," Sleuth sighed, eyes widening when he realised the weasel wasn't about to back down. His finger was on the trigger.

"Do you know how large the bounty is on the kid? I'm bringing in his pelt, I'm sure yer friend will fetch a hefty price as well," he sneered, seconds before shooting.

Tails reacted before Fang sneered, throwing the Lynx to the side and protecting his body with his tails. Fire and pain shot through him like a barrage of poison-tipped needles, and he felt like crying, but once again, he forced the pain to phase through him. He allowed himself to spare one moment looking at the injury. The bullet had grazed one of his tails and tore away some fur and flesh, but he'd missed. Was Nack getting slower? Or was Tails getting faster?

"He… he took the bullet for me…" the lynx murmured in shock.

He used the shock of his actions once again to run away, ducking past a still Sergeant Simian and pulling his Extreme Gear free from the tarp. He froze when he saw Predator Hawk with the rifle he'd thrown over the edge, about to fire when Sleuth Dawg yelled, "STOP!"

The fox couldn't comprehend why he was stopping him from shooting, but he wasn't about to question it _now._ He took a flying leap off the platform, and activated his Extreme Gear halfway down the incredibly drop to the sand dunes below, thanking Solaris he wasn't very far from the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre.

So… why _didn't_ Sleuth Dawg kill him when he had the chance? Once he threw Lightning Lynx aside, he had a clear shot. He could have murdered Tails right then and there…

Why didn't he?

* * *

><p><em>In The End <em>by Linkin Park

* * *

><p>Tails snuck in and out of Mystic Ruins easily enough, there were a lot of people absent, and the only person he'd stopped to say hi to was Emerl. Tails didn't really know what to do about a bullet wound, but he didn't want to alarm anyone by telling them he'd been the subject of another attempted assassination, so he didn't tell anyone. He just wrapped it in gauze. Since he still wore the bandages from his first major incident, no one was going to question why he'd changed the wrapping.<p>

He made sure to use the public walkways on the way back to the Black Arms, walking rather than riding his Extreme Gear. He was still in a lot of pain, but he'd become accustomed to dealing with long-lasting injuries due to the pressure he'd been putting on his tails. He had to be careful, if he kept beating them up like this, then he wasn't going to heal within seven months.

_Welshscot said that I had a minimal chance of being able to fly again in the first place…_

He knew those kinds of thoughts were hosting a battle within his hopeful wishes inside his head, but he always made a point to push them to the back of his head. If he always gave into the negative thoughts, he would definitely lose himself to despair.

But there were some more prone to losing themselves than he.

Tails couldn't stop himself from yelping when a spanner was thrown past his head and an aggravated snarl echoed through the garage. He immediately ran in, pain be damned.

"What's wrong, Shadow?"

"I can't find the fucking right-sized wrench!"

_He's throwing around my spanners because of that?_

Tails ducked when an oil filter suppressor was thrown over his head, reaching the side of his bench and scraping the contents off the table so that Shadow couldn't reach behind him to throw any more. Shadow reached behind him and when he realised there wasn't anything to grab, he slammed his hand down on the poor piece of metal at his mercy. Sometimes he forgot exactly how strong Shadow was in the throes of anger, stronger than Tails even _Sonic_ could hope to be.

They all had a distinct fighting style. Shadow relied on power and chaos. Sonic relied on agility. Knuckles relied on strength. Tails realised that his style came from improvisation, using the items and surrounding area to his advantage. So, if he was in a plain area, against most of his foes, it would become an incredibly difficult fight.

"Shadow," Tails said the words slowly and deliberately, "calm down."

"I'm _trying,_" he growled, shoving the piece of scrap metal away, watching it angrily as it clattered to the ground with continuous loud bangs. He tried to steady his breathing by heaving huge breaths, growling and shaking his fists. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

Shadow sucked in some breath and turned around to look Tails in the eyes, there was a sense of nostalgia in them, a sense of violence, of longing, but…

Tails narrowed his eyes… Something was… off.

_Shadow_ was off.

He seemed so much sadder, so much angrier, so much less…

He seemed more burdened.

Tails wondered why.

"Tails… do you know how you told me to clean the hard drives of junk the other day? Since you were storing all of your machine information and components on there?"

"Yes?" he raised an eyebrow.

"I was browsing through the junk and I came upon some saved emails from someone called SR."

_"Sonic was leader of the Freedom Fighters back then, and I was always sending back e-mails with one of his new friends who went by the initials 'SR'."_

"Yeah, I know," Tails rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. "He was a friend. Sonic always got hurt during the Black Advent, and SR always patched him up for me. He said he was part of the resistance too, but back then it wasn't resistance against Eggman, but against the Black Arms aliens. Right before the Fallen Angel disappeared he did as well." Tails looked down, smiling as he recalled his friend, "I miss him. Even though I never got to meet him. He had a fascinating story… he said he was raised somewhere called Space-"

"-Colony Ark."

"How did you know that?" he knew Shadow was waving the fact in his face, but he was just _too_ shocked to admit it.

"SR was a GUN agent. He knew all about the Black Arms aliens. He considered his father to be Doctor-"

"Gerald."

"He was experimented on as a child. He was a mutant; apparently he said he was part of the very _first_ Black mutant branch. But GUN ruined it for him. The one person he loved with all of his heart was murdered right before his eyes. Her name was-"

Tails breathed, covering his mouth as if he was going to choke on the words.

_"Maria Robotnik."_

Shadow closed his eyes, finally calm it seemed, but he seemed more conflicted than anything.

"Oh Solaris… _that_ was your trigger word, wasn't it? 'Maria Robotnik' was your trigger word!"

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

Shadow remembered _everything_ now.

"And… SR… you were SR, weren't you?"

SR's emails had come from a GUN monitored computer. But SR had always been careful, he had never disclosed his name, never revealed where he was, and convinced Tails to do the same.

"Shadow, what did the 'R' in SR stand for?"

He paused a second, crossing his arms over his chest before murmuring, "Robotnik. It stood for Robotnik." He could see the way that Shadow's hands had started shaking again, but he could not supress the fury in his eyes.

"Don't worry. Don't worry. We're going to get through this… slowly…"

**"**_**NO!"**_

Tails jumped back at the scream, flinching, pressing his ears to his head at the tone. Shadow rarely got this angry, rarely showed any emotion. But he wasn't angry at Tails, he was angry at himself. Tails spied Shadow's phone somewhere in the pile of junk on the floor and snatched it, calling Rouge's number immediately.

"Please, Shadow, take a deep breath."

"Don't you get it Tails? I _AM_ THE FALLEN SERAPH! But I am also Shadow Robotnik. I… I know the real reason why Extreme Gear was banned. I know how Jet's father was killed. I know your uncle, Merlin Prower. I know who my biological father is. I-_fuck- _I know the real reason why Eggman wants to destroy all mutants in the first place. I'm a science experiment. I am kin of the Black Arms. I… I know so much. I-" Shadow sunk to the floor clutching his head.

"I-I'm a _murderer._"

Tails could tell all of his memories coming back at once was too overwhelming for him. Rouge finally picked up her phone.

"_Shadow, for the love of god, you know I'm busy here. Why are you-?"_

"Rouge, it's Tails," he replied, cutting her off immediately, "Shadow needs you, like, right now."

The bat seemed to have gotten the tone of Tails' voice, because she dropped the annoyed tone and adopted a worried one instead, _"What happened?"_

"He found his trigger word. Shadow's memory has returned."

Have you ever tried to give a hedgehog a pat on the back? Tails could tell you it wasn't a happy experience, especially when they moved. Luckily for him, Shadow was as still as stone, apart from the odd shake. He held his head in his hands, slumped over on the floor with his legs in a messy cross in front of him. He had never seen Shadow like this before. Exactly what was his life like, before Tails had found him on the street four years ago?

Rouge appeared minutes after he had called her, and Shadow reacted to her instantly, reaching out to her as if he couldn't believe she was really there. She knelt on the floor next to him, and they shared a glance so private and intimate, Tails was sure he was interrupting something.

"I remember… but Rouge… I thought you were _killed_. How the fuck did you get out of there alive?"

"It's an incredibly long story, Shadow. One you're going to have to start from the very beginning," she said slowly, petting the top of Shadow's head soothingly. "We're going to have to do a recount on the events you do remember, we'll begin with Space Colony Ark."

"Rouge, you didn't leave anything important, did you?" Tails said, getting up. He was getting uncomfortable by the looks that Shadow and Rouge were sending each other. There was an added layer of intimacy he suspected was because Shadow now remembered any past relationship he had with her, and it just made his heart ache.

"I was interviewing Caleb about his encounter with Arly, asking if she'd revealed any more information on who she could be working for."

"He's awake?"

"Oh yeah, surgery is over."

"Caleb," Shadow murmured, pressing a hand to his forehead… "Oh god, we met at Downunda Academy… He was so small… He didn't know how to fight, and he acted pathetic. It can't be the same person? Dammit, what about Sonic and Amy? I knew the Chaotix, fuck, I knew Tails' uncle, I met his mother… this is surreal."

"My uncle?" Tails asked in alarm, "You knew my mother?"

"Calm yourself, Foxy; he'll get to it eventually. Just… Shadow calm down oka-fuck he passed out, when did that happen?" True to word, Shadow was lying on the ground with his eyes closed, looking like he slept there every night.

"If I were you, I'd get him to the memory eraser that handled his memories in the first place," Tails suggested, but Rouge shook her head, looking up at him with a worried expression.

"There was no memory eraser. Shadow lost his memories by himself. We weren't even that sure he _had_ a trigger word. We were just hoping that he did. And you found it."

"I didn't find it. I knew it all along. I never thought the name would come in handy ever again."

"What name?"

"Maria Robotnik."

Rouge gasped, turquoise eyes glistening. "Yes, I remember now too. Oh god. Oh god. Shit. I need to call Mytho… Hell, I need to speak to Commander Tower about this." She reached a hand up to her eyes and rubbed at them for a second, and for a moment, she didn't look like the glamorous seductress that she always was, she was just a worried girl who couldn't tell if her friend was okay or not. "Sweetie, help me take him up to his room? I'll contact the GUN officials from there. After that could you check on Caleb? I left him alone in Leilani's apartment."

Tails complied, trying to hold back comments on how damn heavy Shadow was. He seriously didn't look like he would weigh that much. If Tails hadn't been on the black hedgehog's strict training regime, he was sure he wouldn't be able to lift him at all. He was sure that Rouge was doing most of the work. He bid them farewell after making sure that she'd be alright, before sneaking into Leilani's apartment complex across the street.

He panicked when he heard voices coming from her room and rushed to make sure Caleb was alright.

"For the last bloody time, I'm sure as Eggman is ugly, that paper can't beat scissors!"

"Dude, you're living in the middle ages. What if these scissors were made of orichalcum and the rock was made of some other sedimentary mineral? Or if the scissors were made out of pure gold, and the paper was actual _bark?_"

"Don't you dare try to smooth-talk your way into winning, Heartnet. You may have fooled me the first five times, but this time, I am absolutely sure that scissors beats paper!"

Tails let out a relieved sigh when he saw Marine and Caleb fighting on the couch, one hand holding up the aforementioned scissors and paper positions, while the other hand was fighting over one side of a PS3 controller.

"Oh Hell. Tails! Come over here and tell Ring-tail she shouldn't be hassling the sick and injured."

"Injured my butt! Cesario was trying to give you medicine the other day and you ran down the hall!"

Solaris, they were really getting worked up about this. He turned to the television screen, noticing some kind of zombie one-player was on the pause menu. The kit placed a hand on his face and proceeded to drag his hand down his face. While he was avoiding assassin attempts, his friends were fighting over scissors, paper, rock. Caleb caught onto the sudden exhaustion immediately, staring at Tails with narrowed eyes. This was enough of a distraction for Marine to gain the upper hand, snatching the controller from his grasp.

"Ha! Suck it!"

"You brat!" he was smiling as he said it, but the joyful expression died when he turned to Tails again. The kit must have been revealing an emotion that he wasn't quite aware of. "What happened to you?"

"What?" Tails looked down at Caleb's neck, noticing a ring of tight bandages around it. He'd failed to notice it before, but instead of Caleb's usual short-sleeved attire, he was dressed in long sleeves and the sections of chest and hands he could see were covered in bandages. Arly had definitely won the battle. It frightened him to think about the both of them fighting. "Why are you asking me? What happened to you?"

The brown fox looked down at his injuries, wincing when he turned his head to address Tails. The injury he had in his neck was the most severe, but he was trying to play it off as a scratch. He could probably sense that Tails was doing the same thing about his injury as well.

"I was mauled by a horde of angry caterpillars," he deadpanned, getting off the couch and pushing Tails towards it. "Now, enough about my achievements of the week. Show me where it hurts."

"I don't-" the kit attempted to lie, but Caleb wasn't having any of it.

"Don't lie to me, Tails. You're really bad at it. It wouldn't help if you were good at it either."

The older fox scrounged around the apartment for something, hauling out a medical kit from one of the wardrobes and placing it on the coffee table, sitting down on it before pointing to Tails' tails. He reluctantly surrendered the appendage and proceeded to watch Marine play the zombie game to distract himself from how much Caleb's examination hurt, even though he was being as gentle as possible.

He let out a short breath before rubbing one of his eyes with his hands, "How did you get this?"

"I was attacked by rabid butterflies?" Tails suggested, unwilling to disclose any information to anyone at the moment.

"These stupid insects sound vicious, don't they?" Marine joked, earning a soft chuckle on Tails' part. Caleb didn't however and pulled out three bottles to show to Tails.

"The first one is hydrogen peroxide, the merciful way to clean the wound, the one you'll get if you're good. The second one is iodine, which stings like the fiery pits of Hell if I apply it. The third one is antibiotic ointment, and if you don't tell me where you got it, you won't be getting any."

"Alright!" Tails gave in, because he'd experienced iodine during the Black Advent and he _never_ wanted to again. Holy Chao it stung. "It was an attempted assassination. It's a bullet wound."

"Green jackeroos! Tails! How in Mobius did you escape?" Marine asked, pausing the screen and turning to her friend, bouncing on the sofa.

"I don't know," he shrugged, "they kind of just let me go."

"That's odd isn't it?" she replied, "Aren't assassins supposed to… you know, assassinate?"

Caleb snorted in the middle of his task, "Well put Marine. Always so articulate."

The raccoon smiled sarcastically, "Shut up, Snippy. Well Tails, why did they let you go?"

"I don't know?" he asked, because he was unsure himself. "Do you know what the bounty over my head is? I'm getting kind of worried the price is escalating."

"Trust me," Marine shook her head. "It's better if you don't know. It's not going to affect anything anyway."

"I'd still like to know," he pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. Marine laughed at the childish display, patting him on the head. He turned to Caleb, "When are you starting?"

"Done with the preparatory stage, silly noodle."

"What the-? Where did that come from?" Tails laughed at the stupid comment.

"Marine told me to limit my swearing. Whenever I say 'noodle' I really mean 'dipshit'."

"That's reassuring." But he was really amazed at how fast Caleb had managed to work. He'd probably started with the antibiotic ointment first, because the stinging in his Tails had considerably lessened since he started working. He was now working on the disinfectant, pushing away the old bandages. The bandages on his tails made him think about the ones on Caleb's neck, and then, strangely to his hair. "Hey, what happened to your hair?"

Caleb made a sour face at him, tugging on strand of his fringe. It was a strange, lopsided cut now. Beforehand, the brown fox had been able to keep the tresses in a ponytail, but if he did that now, it would fall out. So, the injury that Arly had placed on his neck also cut off a chunk of his hair. It looked rather abstract now. He assumed he hadn't had time to go to a hairdresser to get it fixed.

_Amy dabbled in hairdressing. Maybe I should ask her… oh, but I'm still fighting with her… I should apologise…_

He was shoved out of that particular train of thought when Marine giggled, "Cal doesn't really want to speak about his new do right now. But it looks… okay… doesn't it Tails?"

"He said there was no point in lying."

"It's nice to see you're learning."

"Okay… this is going to sting a little. Keep talking to keep yourself distracted. Ask me a question or something. You seem to have one every time you see me."

Tails nodded, thinking about all those he'd had about Caleb in the past, when Arly popped into his head. He wanted to ask about her, but thought that would have been too personal… maybe he-

Another thought popped into his head.

"Do you know what the symptoms of Neuro Immuno Deficiency Syndrome are?"

Arly has asked him to ask Shadow, but Shadow was breaking down. Besides, Caleb had studied biology, there was a chance he'd know about it. He winced as the disinfected cotton ball hit his skin, panicking slightly when a glazed look filmed the older fox's eyes. Marine hadn't noticed a thing; she just kept playing the video game.

"Y-yeah…" he murmured, continuing his task, this time afraid to make eye contact. "It's a sexually transmitted disease, but some unlucky people are born with it. The disease travels out from the heart, but mostly settles in the brain, where it starts to wreak havoc." It looked like this was a lot harder than it should have been; he kept on stopping in his task. He might have been trying to recall the information, or forcing himself to voice it in words.

"There are two kinds of NIDS, the first one is where the disease hits you like a giant mallet, and instantly you're a sick little weakling, and you're never gonna get any better. The brain has lost control already, and you'll slowly start to die. The second string of it includes people that are going to receive heavy hits of the disease every now and then, but they're going to recover until the attacks become so frequent that their bodies give up on them, and then they die." He paused after that, sighing heavily before he continued with his work.

"Victims suffer from intense mood swings, because it screws with the part of us that is supposed to be evaluating feeling and emotion. Then it becomes more obvious, stuff like hallucinations. The heavy hitters suffer from bouts of illness and fevers that will heal themselves days after. It'll get worse." There was a really long pause after that sentence. "Sufferers are then going to be subject to a pick-and-mix of the worst mental illnesses to offer. Depression. Anxiety. Paranoia. Eating disorders. Personality disorders. Phobias. Post-traumatic stress. Psychosis. Schizophrenia. Sometimes, _all _of them. Once you've reached the stage of sensory deprivation, that means losing either sight, taste, smell, touch or hearing, then you know there's no going back, you're going to die within the next few years.

"The saddest thing about sufferers of NIDS is that most of them don't even reach the point where their body just gives up on them. They just… kill themselves."

He'd been so absorbed in the information that he didn't realise Caleb had finished wrapping up the wound. He nodded, and before he could stop himself, the next question slipped from his lips.

"But… why would Arly want me to know that?"

"_Arly?"_ Caleb snarled, baring his fangs at the name. "_She_ was the one to ask you to ask me what the symptoms of NIDS are?"

"Well, she told me to ask Shadow but-"

"_That dirty bitch."_

The venom in his voice was enough to render the entire room silent. Marine had paused the game as soon as she realised they were growling at each other.

"I can't believe she had the _audacity…_ Well… she's a Truscott after all. But… Tails, don't tell Shadow. It has the possibility of bringing up more bad memories."

"Too late for that."

The tension in the air became so thick it was like breathing in cement, and he could see why now. The voice. Oh God. She was here.

Caleb, Marine and Tails slowly turned to the window, noticing that the familiar white ermine was sitting with her legs cross over each other at the sill, looking like she'd always belonged there. Tails thought his heart had stopped beating. There was Arly, looking beautiful and dangerous, and then Caleb who was staring at her with a blank expression. They stayed like that for several moment before, she hitched up a shoulder and smiled, her velvety tone ringing in the silent room.

"Like the new haircut, Callie."

"You're a heartless whore."

She laughed hollowly, blue eyes glinting, "More than you know, Sweetheart."

"You despicable cunt."

"If you're just going to stand there and throw insults at me, I'm going to find a more entertaining playmate…" Tails almost screamed when he saw Arly's grin widen, to the point of impossibility, so far it should have been splitting her face with the effort as she revealed canines like _knives_ and her eyes turned from enchanting blue irises to black slits, "Like your little _sister_ for example."

Caleb stood stock still as she leapt out the window, clenching his hands before he sprinted towards the sill and leapt out of it too.

"Caleb!" Marine and Tails yelled at the same time, rushing towards the sill. It was too late, both the empath, and his demonic ex-girlfriend were gone.

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

**(i)** It's a little hard to remember these things sometimes, so here's a reminder. Tails joined the **Grand Prix** right after an Egg Giant _destroyed_ a cemetery housing the dead of **The Massacre**, including his parent's tombstones.

**(ii)** _Sergeant Simian_ and _Sleuth Dawg_ were bouncers in the Egg Dome for the second **Grand Prix **race. They attempted to steal Jet and Tails' boards and sell them on the Black Market in Chapter 39: Come Please, I'm Callin' under _Cops and Robbers_ by the Hoosiers.

**(iii)** Scourge and Fiona visited the Black Arms in Chapter 44: Counting Opportunities to warn them about various underworld problems like the bounties over their heads, and the rising competition on the race track.

**(iv)** This quote is from Chapter 36: As Much As You Secretly Mean To Me, under _Wind_ by Akeboshi.

**NOTICE!**

Do _you_ want to be part of the AoODD team? Writing scenes for this massive work and incorporating your own personal flair into this fanfiction? Well here's your chance!

See the link on my profile for more details and PM me if you have any questions.


	60. Not Enough

**domi|note**

Thanks to **Lord Cooler**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **insidious fanboy**, **Blaze of Fury**, **HalfWright**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Parkour Master**, **TheFunGuy**, **The Loner in the Shadows** and **Exploder **for reviewing the last chapter.

For the first time, I present to you, a collaborative text from **Stonefaced610** and **Jolt T. R. H.**

I'm sorry guys, I totally forgot about fanfiction for a bit. I'm having so much fun writing my own stories (and watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood). You should check them out on Wattpad! You can see Caleb in the story he was _meant_ to be in. His personality is a little different, but he'll soon become the person that you recognise in this fanfiction, in a completely different universe! My story is called **Crown of Thorns**.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older. ~Michel de Montaigne<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Sixty<br>_.  
>"But there will come a time, when our own strength alone won't be enough."<p>

_domi_

* * *

><p>"It's good to know that she's safe," he sighed into the phone, letting out a lungful of air he didn't know he was holding back.<p>

_"Yeah,"_ Caleb's voice was raspy and worn over the phone, accompanied by questions from his excited little sister in the background. _"Arielle was just messing with me, but I can't tell whether she's joking or not these days. I have to be really careful."_

"And yet you're dismissing doctor's orders and running around like a convict," Tails joked. He was pacing around the garage instead of fixing his latest commission like he was meant to. The fox actually wanted to go upstairs and get something to eat, but he knew Amy was up there and things were still iffy between the both of them.

_"Says the most wanted guy in Soleanna."_

"Touche. How is Lottie?"

_"She's fine. She's been playing this weird game on one of GUN's computers called Slender, and apparently it's really amusing."_

"'Slender'? I'll look it up. So will you be coming back tonight?"

_"Aww, Honey, you __**do**__ care! I'll be back before nightfall. I've got some errands to run. Okay? Bye Sugarmuffin!"_

Tails rolled his eyes, "Bye, Caleb. Say goodbye to Lottie for me too."

_"Lottie, Tails says you're an annoying brat."_

_"No he __**didn't**__ you liar!"_

He hung up laughing at the Heartnet siblings, glad that they were okay. Solaris knew they had been through too much lately.

The fox stretched languidly, looking up at the stairs to the second story. His stomach rumbled, he was starving, but ascending the staircase meant that he would have to confront Amy.

_Is it worth it? _he contemplated, as he placed his tools away, giving up for the day. _Yeah, I'd prefer an awkward confrontation instead of starvation anyway. _

* * *

><p><em>Stonefaced610<em>

* * *

><p>The GUN headquarters was almost completely silent as Sonic entered. The large room was nearly empty, the only people there being the people he came to meet in the first place. Namely, Rouge, who was at a desk studying between different pieces of paper in front of her, Caleb, who was off in a far corner of the room dozing off in a chair next to a computer console, his little sister sitting on his lap, occupied with playing a video game on the older fox's phone, and Chris, who was off in another corner hunched over a small desk looking through mounds of different paperwork, seeming to be very tired as he did so. To Sonic's slight surprise, though, Shadow wasn't there. He had expected the black hedgehog to be there. When Rouge had called him to meet up, she made it sound like it was important. Oh, well, maybe he's just off somewhere else right now. Rouge can catch him up later.<p>

"Hey, Rouge!" the hedgehog greeted as he approached the bat at her desk. She looked up, seeming to be in a daze of some sort, perking up when she saw it was Sonic who had distracted her from the work in front of her.

"Oh, Sonic," she said quietly as she stood up from the desk. "Good, just who I need to see right now."

"Yeah, what's up? Over the phone, you sounded like it was important for me to get down here." Rouge looked through some of the papers on her desk until she found something under all of them that looked like a painting, which she picked up and handed over to him. Sonic took it and looked it over. Sure enough, it was a painting of a man who was trapped in an hourglass, except the painting was covered in black marker tracings. "What's this?"

"It's one of Caleb's mom's paintings," Rouge replied. "The marker's an outline of a map of Soleanna that Selina painted in, and 'x' marks the spot on the map where she pegged Eggman's base." Sonic looked up at her from the painting, eyebrows raised in delight. She flashed him a smile. "You're welcome, blue boy. Take that to your Freedom Fighters. You guys should be able to come up with something pretty good, now you've got that."

"Nice!" Sonic replied happily as he looked over the map again, then he folded it up and held it in his fist. "So, you gonna come and be there to help us draw up the plans?"

"Nah, I'll catch up later. I've gotta stay here and hold the fort for a while." She nodded to Caleb across the room. "Gotta watch over sleeping beauty, over there, too."

"Alright, well, what about Shadow? Where's he?" Rouge tensed up slightly at the mention of the black hedgehog's name.

"Well, um, Sonic," she started slowly. "The thing with Shadow is... Well, see, he kinda-"

"YOU!"

The accusatory bark rang through the near-silent room like something of a gunshot, startling all present. Chris was so startled that he accidentally knocked one of the mounds of paperwork on his desk to the floor and Caleb was jolted out of his nap, which only served to startle Lottie even more, causing her to drop Caleb's phone and him to mutter a string of profanities as he bent down to pick it up. He stood back up to ask, in a very cranky mood, now, who had woken him up with their shouting when he found himself staring across the room at the very person who had done just that, though upon seeing who it was, he decided that he should probably just keep his mouth shut.

There stood Shadow in a doorway at the other end of the room, his expression positively furious and his eyes locked on one person and one person only: Sonic.

The blue hedgehog looked to Rouge, who nodded slightly. "He remembers." Sonic looked back at Shadow, who started to make his way over to him at a brisk, menacing pace.

"Ah, shit."

"Damn right, I remember," Shadow growled as he advanced on the blue hedgehog. "I remember everything, and you and I need to talk." He had backed Sonic up into a computer console that stood by Rouge's desk. He looked like he was ready to throttle the blue speedster. "You knew. All this time-"

"Shadow, calm down-"

"No, I won't calm down!" he shouted. "You had no right, Sonic! You knew about everything! You knew that I was the Fallen Angel! You knew about all the people that I..." His voice trailed off as he took a soft, shuttering breath, unable to finish the sentence. Then he dropped his voice down to a menacing growl. "You knew about _Maria_."

"Yes, I did." Sonic was at a loss for what to say. All he could do was roll with the proverbial punches that Shadow was throwing him right now.

"You knew." Sonic nodded. "And I asked you." Nod again. "Several times." Nod. "And you said you didn't."

"Yeah," Sonic whispered.

"You lied."

"Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

Sonic sighed slightly. "Well-"

"I'd think carefully, Sonic, because I've been thinking of how someone could justify doing something like this, and I've been having a pretty hard time with it."

"You didn't want to know!" Sonic had finally caught up with what was happening. A hard glare to match Shadow's came over his expression as he regained his composure, though it slowly started to soften as he spoke. "Shadow, all the stuff you remember now; do you really want to anymore, now that you actually do?"

"It doesn't matter," Shadow answered quickly. "You still didn't have the right to decide that for me."

"But even so, you probably still don't even remember the half of it, Shadow," Sonic argued. "During the Crimson Night, there were times when you weren't even you."

"What are you talking about?" Shadow asked quietly.

"I'm talking about the Liquid Chaos," Sonic explained.

"The what?"

"Liquid Chaos," Sonic repeated. "It was this toxin, this drug that was released by these plants that the aliens had. You were infected by it, and you didn't react well to it. It drove you mad, completely insane. You became savage and murderous, and you destroyed everything and everyone who crossed your path. After a while, you started to become attached to it, kind of addicted, and you just kept getting worse and worse as the addiction did. There were some points where you made me question whose side you were on; made me think that maybe it would be better to just kill you before you did too much damage."

Shadow blinked. He was still remembering. He could remember the plants, now. The toxins, the drugs that made him feel so powerful, so free, that he could go out into the city and obliterate anyone he saw without caring, no guilt or remorse to slow him down. He also remembered how he felt when he came down from it. The guilt would hit him first, then the need for more; the addiction.

Shadow shook his head, shaking himself out of his new memories as he did so, bringing him back to the situation at hand.

"It still doesn't matter," he growled. "Like I said, you had no right to decide for me."

"Look, maybe you're right," Sonic said. "Maybe I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry, Shadow, but after you lost your memory, it was like you were a new person; like you had gotten a new start. You had no idea about anything that had happened, or any of the stuff you did. I figured it was over and, after all that had happened, that the least I could do for you was protect you from the grief that knowing would have caused you."

"Yeah, well, good job, then, Sonic," Shadow retorted sarcastically. "You succeeded at _protecting_ me for a few years." The black hedgehog turned and took a few steps away from the blue. "But, in protecting me, do you have any idea how many you've hurt?"

"What?" Sonic's tone was skeptical as Shadow turned to give him another glare.

"Do you have any idea about the information that I knew before I lost my memory?" The black hedgehog's voice slowly rose as he started back in on Sonic for another verbal rampage. "Do you have any idea of the things I could have stopped from happening?"

"What are you talking about?"

"With the information I knew, I could have saved Caleb's mother from being murdered!" Shadow started. "I could have rescued Wave's grandfather! I could have saved Leilani from going to the mental hospital! I could have stopped Chris from repeating a year!" By now, the two hedgehogs were once again a few inches from each other, face to face and eyes locked in an angry stare-down. "I could have stopped a lot of bad things from happening, Sonic, and hell, we might have already been able to take down Eggman, too."

"And what? You wanna blame me for that?" Sonic challenged. "Hey, don't look at me for that, I had no idea that you could have done any of that stuff, and if I had, I would have told you everything from day one." He narrowed his eyes as he prepared to gain his own ground against Shadow in the argument. "But y'know what, if you want someone to blame, then blame Rouge. She was the one who should have thought about that when she agreed with me to keep this a secret from you."

"Don't you _dare_ try to pin this on Rouge," Shadow growled, now completely livid at his blue counterpart. "You're the one who kept this from me in the first place! I lived in _your_ home after I lost my memory and I asked _you_ if you knew anything about me, and _you_ were the one who lied about it."

"Okay, then, fine, yeah, I lied to you about your memories, and I probably shouldn't have, and you're right, I didn't have any right to at all, so if you wanna take it outta me for that, go ahead," Sonic replied angrily. "But if you wanna try and blame me for the things you say you could have stopped if you had remembered, then I'm not gonna stick around for it. I told you who played their part in that, and I have better things to do than listen to you throw false accusations at me." He pushed past Shadow and headed for the door he had come in.

"Don't walk away!" Shadow shouted after him. "We're not done here!"

"I am! And you can try and stop me!"

Shadow huffed quietly, rage and anger running through him as he watched the hedgehog get closer and closer to the door. "Very well."

The empty silence that had reclaimed the room after the two hedgehogs stopped shouting at each other was banished once again as Shadow let out a battle cry and dove into a spin-dash, which nailed Sonic square in the back and sent him flying into the wall across the room. Silence reigned once again for a few seconds as Sonic sunk down to the floor and got back onto his feet, turning to lock eyes with Shadow, their stares both challenging, like two angry cowboys preparing to "draw" on each other at high noon. Caleb was tempted to whistle his rendition of music from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", but restrained himself, instead choosing to hoist Lottie into his arms, preparing himself to break for the nearest exit when the fighting began.

The two hedgehogs held each others' gazes for only a few seconds longer, just enough time for Chris to bolt in between them and grab the painting/map that had fallen from Sonic's grasp when Shadow had attacked. He had barely jumped behind a computer console for cover when both the angry hedgehogs simultaneously dove into their own spin-dashes, colliding with explosive force and ricocheting off each other. Caleb made a dash with his sister held protectively in his arms as they both came out of their curls and slid on their feet to a stop, immediately shooting back at each other to reengage just as Chris, who was right on Caleb's heels, made it out of the room, map safely protected in his jacket pocket.

Rouge watched frozen from the sidelines at her desk, completely at a loss for what to do; whether to follow her comrades out to safety or stay and enter into a fray that could very easily kill her in an attempt to stop the fighting. In the end, she never decided, choosing to just stay and watch in fear as the two hedgehogs continued to rage at each other.

* * *

><p><em>domi<em>

* * *

><p>Now that he knew that Caleb and Lottie were safe, he guessed it was okay to go and grab some grub. It felt like he hadn't eaten in a while and his stomach was about to render him deaf. As he'd originally suspected, Amy was in the kitchen, preparing dinner for guests she knew wouldn't appear tonight. It was a rather lonely sight. Tails pitied her.<p>

_I suppose it must be some kind of comfort, preparing food for friends that were supposed to be eating with her. _

In truth, they hadn't had a dinner with absolutely everyone since the start of the summer holidays, which were going to end pretty soon. The Grand Prix was supposed to mark the end of summer holidays for everyone, it had been timed perfectly to fit the schedule of the new year, and that's what everyone was so suspicious about. They were afraid that Eggman was going to shove in some new order that would turn their lives upside down, and that was really worrying, since the last time he'd done that, over a million innocent people had died.

_This is a really bad time to be thinking about the Massacre._

Being far too prideful to accept whatever wonderful concoction Amy was preparing, he brushed past her and went to the pantry to find some instant noodles, balancing the packet with the instant coffee and sugar.

He ate his noodles and drank his coffee in relative quiet, the tension hanging in the air like a taut thread.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Amy started sobbing over the stove.

_Bless the guy who knows how to deal with girls when they're crying. _

"I'm s-sorry."

Tails closed his eyes and heaved in a huge breath before letting it out in an equally huge sigh.

"Me too."

"He made me realise, that even though you keep scaring me, you're not going to stop it. This determination has become who you are."

"I'm glad that you realised that, Amy. And I really am sorry that I said that about you. You shouldn't be told off because it's in your nature to care for other people."

"That sounded really grown up of you, Tails," she laughed, placing a hand on his head to ruin his fringe. He ignored the sniffles in between her words, and continued to eat his food in peace.

"We're friends, and I love you. We can't forget that, especially in these really hard times."

"I love you, too," she giggled, placing a kiss to the top of his head, knocking his instant noodles out from under his nose and replacing it with a bowl of creamy potatoes, fresh from the oven.

"Oh thank Solaris," he groaned in pleasure, smacking his lips. "I'll tell you Ames, I have been eating _plastic_ for the last week. I have missed your cooking so badly."

"I know," she smiled, taking a seat next to him and pulling out the communal laptop. "I've also been looking into the news." He took the time to really observe her now, while her eyes were cast in the direction of the digital words. She looked so much older than she was, a mere sixteen years and already in charge of a household of five, plus three visitors. Granted that none of them were children, unless you decided to count Tails as a child, which you shouldn't because he will _bite _you. She would make a good mother.

She kind of looked like one, with her messy petal quills pulled back with her signature red headband, and soft black lashes hovering over gentle forest green eyes. Even her hands, worn from housework and other various occupations she had jumped to over the years, looked thin and delicate pressing keys on the computer as if they were dancing with her words. He shouldn't have taken her for granted. Amy was a rock that kept him grounded, and maintained a building he loved coming home to. Amy was his sister. Siblings fight over stupid things that don't matter, but they should never hurt each other as they both had.

Whatever she'd tried to say was lost on him, because he was too busy focusing on the warm feeling blossoming in his chest. He kind of felt mushy and cheesy, but he didn't care. He stepped out of his chair and bent down to give her a hug. Solaris knew he needed one.

She stopped talking and smiled, reaching her hands around his neck to squeeze him back.

"I've missed you."

* * *

><p><em>Jolt T. R. H.<em>

* * *

><p>Sonic stumbled along as fast as he could. His fur was matted with blood, and his left arm wasn't responding to any of his commands. It was also <em>bleeding<em>. It was very painful, making his vision blur and swim. He didn't know if he broke it or dislocated it, but even when fixed it was going to cause him major problems in the way of usability for a while. He hoped it didn't need to be amputated or anything.

Sonic's pace quickened when he saw the hidden entrance and he walked inside. By the time he was inside, he was ready to pass out. He limped down the hall until he saw a lighted doorway, and went inside. "The life of the party's here!" He moaned as he came through the door. Several eyes looked up at him with a smile, then a look of horror.

Nicole raced over to him and asked urgently, "Are you okay?" Sonic was too tired to give a snarky remark, instead slipping off his left glove and handing it to her. Curiously, Nicole looked at it and found coordinates.

"…Ggman's…ase" Sonic murmured before his eyes closed. Sally nearly screamed out loud as Sonic's legs fell out from under him, and he dropped into unconsciousness.

…

…

…Darkness…

…Sonic….Tails…Pain..Shadow…..All your fault….Hate you…Rage…Light..…Darkness.…Agony..Help…

…Light…Pain…_Power. Feel the power, Sonic._

…Pain_…Feel your pain. Channel it. Savor it. Use it. You're all alone, Sonic_.

…Darkness…_You are weak. Pathetic. Alone. Don't resist me_…

…Light_…No. Not done with you yet… Will speak. Will win…_

…Rage…_Yeesss…Succumb…Embrace_…

…Light…_No…Don't go…Not yet…No…_

"Hey Sonic," Nicole said as Sonic became conscious again.

Sonic groaned and looked at Rotor. Rotor jumped back and sputtered, "S-Sonic, your pupils! They're red!" Sonic blinked in surprise, and Rotor blinked in disbelief. He hesitated before murmuring, "Never mind, it must have been the lighting…"

Sonic nodded with a wince and said, "What's the damage?"

Rotor answered hesitantly, "Well, there's good news, bad news, and worse news."

Sonic said, "What's the bad news?"

Nicole answered, "You dislocated your arm."

Sonic sighed and asked, "What's the worse news?"

Rotor responded, "You also fractured it." Sonic growled, but Rotor said, "We gave you aloe vera while you were asleep. You should be okay in a day or so."

Sonic asked, "What's the good news?"

"We get a crack at Egghead." Sally answered for them.

"So what's up? Other than the sky, the roof, and generic passenger jets of course." Sonic asked.

The room burst into a hearty chuckle, and Rotor answered with a smile, "We're finalizing the details for the infiltration."

Sally asked, "Are you joining us?"

Sonic flashed a smile and said, "I wouldn't miss it. So how are we doing this?"

Sally put him back down and said, "Drink this first, Flash," handing him a bottle of aloe.

Sally continued, "That's what we're discussing. There's four possible ways in, including just charging in through the front door and destroying everything we see. What's your input?"

Sonic looked at the ceiling in thought, and said, "What's the hardest one?"

"There's a supply depot in City Escape, and the shipment trucks stop just long enough for a strike team to sneak in. Then when the team gets into the docking bay, they infiltrate."

"Okay, how about the other two?" Sonic inquired.

"There's an old basement window that leads to a foyer, and a hangar for his private jet."

Sonic raised an eyebrow and asked, "He owns an airplane?"

Nicole shook her head and said, "If he has one, then it's somewhere else. But there's lots of commotion, like there's going to be some in there soon." Sonic muttered something under his breath.

Sally noticed and asked, "What is it?"

Sonic waved his other hand and said, "If it's what I think it is, then I need to talk to the Babylon Rogues. Hopefully for all of us, he's just renovating the place." Sally glanced at Nicole. Nicole shrugged and motioned for Sonic to continue.

"The foyer would be perfect for a strike group. And I really think we should sabotage the hangar." Sonic pondered the four possibilities.

Rotor asked, "Why don't we break in half and break the front door as a distraction, and at the same time sabotage the hangar?"

Sonic looked thoughtful and said, "Hold that thought."

He stood and paced back and forth. Rotor coughed and asked, "Aren't you supposed to be resting?"

Sonic looked at him sourly and retorted, "My arm's broken, not my leg." He continued pacing. His head jolted up and said, "That's it!" They all looked at him expectantly. "We break down the front door and storm in." Sonic declared.

Nicole raised an eyebrow and asked incredulously, "That's it?"

Sonic waggled his eyebrows and answered, "No, that's only the beginning."

Sally said, "Well, what's next?"

Sonic smirked and said, "After Eggman concentrates his forces at the front gate, we'll sabotage his hangar."

Rotor, feeling a bit frustrated, asked, "Isn't that what I suggested?"

Sonic confirmed, "Yes, it is. But we'll sabotage it loudly. Loud enough for Egghead to notice and know he was conned, and send his forces over there."

Bunnie, who was quiet until this moment, spoke up. "Sugah, if we make him notice us, then won't that make it easier t'know that we're tryin' ta get in?"

Sonic's smile was that of a Cheshire cat at this point. "Exactly." Sonic stated. "He notices us sabotaging his hangar, and he sends forces over there. But he also sees that we're trying to get in by hiking through the front door. So what does he do? He keeps forces at the entrance, and sends his troops at both places to stop both invasions."

Sally, feeling more frustrated than she looked, said with a hint of strain in her voice, "Sonic, if he guards both places so tightly, how are we going to break in at those points?"

Sonic, looking for all the world like he was going to explode with the dastardliness of his plot, simply said, "We don't."

Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, and given how he was acting, they undoubtedly believed it too. But Sonic didn't look the least bit concerned about everyone thinking him as a loon. Instead he said, "He protects the two spots with every resource he can stand losing, as well as a couple he can't. We cripple him. And at the same time, we infiltrate."

Antoine felt very much like Sonic was simply toying with them, dangling a complete answer in front of all of them but dumbfounding them at the same time. And he also felt lost. He said angrily, "Zonic, out wiz it! Vhow are ve getting into ze Eggman's base?!"

Sonic looked happily at Antoine and said, "Okay, since nobody knows where I'm going. While Egghead's busy, we send strike teams at the window and with the shipment."

Sally thought for a bit. Then it clicked. "We're creating a distraction for a distraction." She clarified. Sonic nodded and responded excitedly, "That's it!" Sally continued, "We plan around the strike team at the depot. When they're en-route, we burst down Eggman's front door and create a distraction. Then, we send the sabotage team a bit more stealthily but enough for him to notice it, and he'll think that that's our actual objective."

Sonic nodded and finished for her. "The strike teams will infiltrate at the same time while we'll destroy whatever we can before we pull out, and they'll get in without difficulty. If there's a time window at any given time, we'll assemble other teams to meet up with the other two, whether in the middle of the fight or when we're retreating. Is the plan crystal clear now?"

Many nodded. "Great idea Sonic!" Nicole praised.

Sonic shrugged and said, "Oh, it's nothing. Thinking outside sanity is fun! I'm gonna go snatch a nap."

Nicole said, "Before you do, the races were recently posted. Let's check them out."

Everyone crowded around Nicole and watched her computer monitor closely. "Okay, here we go." Nicole stated. She brought her findings to a projector on the wall for everyone to see. "Here's Sally's race… Looks like she's going to be racing in… Night Chase? There's no districts like that, are there?"

Sonic's head shot up. "Night Chase? That's what a couple of people call City Escape at night!" Many people looked at him. He continued, "At night, GUN patrols the main street with this big rig filled with personnel itching for action. If you don't get out of the way, then squish goes your insides. I wonder how Eggman would copy that…"

Nicole turned back to the computer and continued searching. "It says here that the stiffest competition in this race isn't clarified. In fact, the only racers confirmed to race as of this time is Sally and a representative for Gossamer. The betting pool is five to two in Sally's favor."

Sonic smirked and said, "At least we know who most people are voting for. Say, how about Jet and Tails?"

Nicole searched again and answered, "Jet's going to a stage called Sand Ruins, and Tails is going to a secret course." She switched to the internet and continued typing. "It's codenamed "Illusion". Whatever it is, it's themed in space."

Sonic's face was that of amusement as he said, "If he's racing on a space station, he'll undoubtedly geek out." All of the people who knew Tails personally laughed heartily, knowing full well that the two-tailed fox was always interested in figuring out how something new ticked.

Nicole checked the competition and said, "There's nothing on Tails' competition, but Jet looks like he's got it easy. No names that are sticking out at all. He's also at the top of the betting pool a hundred to one. Tails is the only one in his betting pool at this time."

Sally thought for a moment and asked, "What about Shadow?"

Nicole checked. "He's going to Rocky Ridge. It looks a lot like a cowboy movie. He's against Bean."

Without meaning to, Sonic shivered. "Ugh. Stupid duck and his explosives. I hope they beat all the tar out of each other, living or not."

Sally glanced at him and asked, "Shadow's the one that gave you the injuries, isn't he?" Sonic nodded sourly. She sighed and said, "Drink your aloe and rest."

Sonic huffed, "I think I will drink my aloe. But now I can't sleep." Rotor asked why, and Sonic responded, "I don't know. I just don't feel like sleeping."

"Oh man, before I forget!" Sonic pulled something out of his quills, a few rolled up diagrams and spread them over the table. "Tails race starts tomorrow at three pm. Since it's going to be the only race of the day, the hype is going to start a few hours before that, and they're going to have pre-races from eliminated contestants and interviews going on and all that jazz. We need to strike as soon as the race starts."

"What are these?" Sally asked him, pushing him aside a little to examine the papers.

Jet was the one that answered her, standing on the other side of this particular table, "These are detailed maps of Eggman's base."

"Woah!" Rotor exclaimed, "Where in Mobius did you get these?"

"Heartnet gave them to us in exchange for helping with the first aloe vera heist, and man was it difficult," the green bird crowed, running a hand through his crest of feathers.

"I'll bet," Sonic smirked.

"So will we infiltrate during the races Sonic?" Jet asked as Sonic drank his bottle of aloe vera. Sonic paused in between sips. _Hate._ Sonic blinked. _Rage._ Sonic shook his head violently. _Make them pay…_ Sonic steadied his breathing. _Power. Raw Power…_

Sonic looked up at Jet. His eyes flickered red as he smirked and answered, "We'll take him down fast and hard." _No mercy… SHOW NO MERCY!_ "No mercy." _Yeesss…_

* * *

><p><em>domi<em>

* * *

><p><em>bonus scene<em>

'Caleb and Arly's Meeting, after The Race'

in poetry format.

_'Not Mine/ Empty Funerals'_

i.

Clouds like distant red and rouge  
>painted far on this day of reckoning.<br>The advent of their sins collide  
>sounding hurt and screaming loud<br>like knives, daggers and guns.  
>He, the Sky looked down once<br>and laughed at the stupid fools,  
>earnest in their hatred and sincere in their doubt<br>one alive  
>and<br>one  
>the element of<br>missing coffins.  
>An empty funeral.<p>

ii.

"Come what say you?"  
>Because one had been raised to imitate Shakespearian tongue<br>and she, the beauty, teeth glistening like ancient bone,  
>sharpened to the point of murder,<br>grown and seeded as a killer  
>for this doomsday.<br>His heart ached.  
><em>How stupid of me. Not MINE.<em>

iii.

Named after lions she screams, "Once you had a choice!  
>And you chose wrong."<br>"What to do in choiceless choices?"  
><em>What if? What if?<em>  
>They played a game of words and wit,<br>Fun like juggling chainsaws  
>hide and seek in catecombs<br>nap time in a cemetary  
>or<br>feathers dipped in turpentine?  
>Familiar? Always...<br>But you'll never be able to grasp it...  
>no... not really.<p>

iv.

They fought.  
>He was bested.<br>And now he lay,  
>broken not just in body<br>but in soul  
>in pride<br>in voice  
>in heart.<br>Oh?  
><em>How stupid of me. NOT MINE.<em>

**fin.**

_tbc._

* * *

><p><strong>domi|note<strong>

Read and review~

Feel free to comment about _any_ aspect of the chapter, whether it was written by myself or someone else.


	61. Are You Scared?

**a|n**

Thanks to Vigi, HalfWrite, The Loner in the Shadows, Undead009, Nubah 6, Ija, LordCooler, Yuke Navy Pilot, insidious fanboy and DadderTheDalek, Exploder, SuperheroAnimeGeek and Talons310 for reviewing the last chapter.

_Vigi _- I'm really sorry about the lack of Wave/Tails in the story as of late. There's been a lot going on. I'm afraid there won't be a substantial amount of romance for a while. There's going to be a little bit of it in this chapter though.

'Captain Chao's Crunchy Flakes' are not mine, I can't remember where they're from, but I will credit the person when I find it.

I'm sorry guys. I really have been stretching myself too thin. And TUMBLR! Holy crap tumblr is just so damn _distracting, _and I have writer's block and I keep on learning of writers that are so much more talented than I and... yeah, things have been... _trying._

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>I long for the liberation of all people. ~ Jasmine Guy<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<br>**.  
><em>Chapter Sixty One<br>_.  
>"What are you so scared of? Judgement isn't fair. It's what we learnt to see."<p>

_Eutrepe _by Chelly

* * *

><p>It didn't surprise her, in light of her terrible sleeping habits, that at five am she couldn't return to slumber anymore. She'd been switching in an out of consciousness the entire night, and because of that she felt a little jaded as she snuck out of the spare room of the Black Arms and went to make herself some coffee in the kitchen. Her mind had been in gear since two o'clock, her heart and mind fighting against each other as conflicting issues refused to be ignored. She wanted to slam her head into the counter.<p>

The swallow sat at the table with her cup, taking a tentative sip before slamming it down again, waiting for the coffee to work it's magic. She was feeling particularly irritable but was unsure how to alleviate herself of this stress.

_Stop kidding yourself. The main reason you feel this terrible is because this could be the last time you see Tails. _

She had to admit, the voices nagging her had a point. Once they found grandfather, they'd have to go into hiding until Eggman dug up the Babylon Key, even if Jet was still in the competition. They wouldn't be able to speak to any of their friends, because compromisation was going to get them killed at this point. A violent shudder racked her brain at the thought of any of them getting killed on her account. She didn't think she could live with the guilt.

Wave had everything organised, all she had to worry about now was the execution of her plan. She'd memorised their mission- Sonic had drilled it into their heads. She'd committed all of the back-up plans to memory as well. She'd tuned their Extreme Gear, their weapons and their communicators. She'd read up on all of the statistics for every Meteotech robot ever captured and examined, as if she was studying for a test. She'd trained rigorously for three hours yesterday, making sure that she wasn't rusty for the fight they no doubt would encounter upon breaking into Eggman's top secret laboratory, but she _still_ couldn't sleep properly, exhaustion aside.

She drummed her fingers against the tabletop itching for something to do when another door opened. She heard angry mutterings and feet that were stomping, but trying hard _not to _as she watched Caleb descend the stairs two steps at a time, walking fast and speaking angrily into his phone. He didn't even look like he saw her as he kept on yell-whispering into the device, descending the steps for the third floor and disappearing into the door on the second floor leading to the garage.

Wave sat there surprised for a moment as she wondered what to make of what she just saw, sipping on her coffee quietly. She didn't respond, at all, minutes later when Caleb joined her at the table, seemingly engrossed with one of the dozens of hemp bracelets he wore. It looked like he was trying to take one off.

"What in Enlil's name are you doing?" she asked him, reaching forward and grabbing his hand, untying the bracelet as if it was some kind of festering monster.

"I'm amputating a part of my soul," he replied, getting up and grabbing some scissors from inside one of the drawers.

"Stop being so dramatic," she muttered, taking the bracelet and saving it from Caleb's wrath.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he growled, eyebrows furrowing together. He was taking the tone he did whenever he was forced to speak about his past. She was all for a history lesson.

"Calm down. You might regret what you do later. What do you mean amputation?"

He huffed and sat himself down, laying his arm between the both of them, displaying the many hemp bracelets that he normally wore. "When I was in Downunda GUN Academy, Arielle and I used to get in trouble _all the time._"

"I figured."

"Detention was in one of the art rooms left behind by whatever the institute was before it was a GUN Academy, and when the teacher would leave, we'd look around the room for something to do. We found this 'how to make hemp bracelet' kit and made one every single time we went into the detention room."

"But you have _heaps_ of those," she replied, astounded.

"Well, the first five or so were for detention but then we started making them for fun. We have a hemp bracelet representing Shadow that Rouge, Topaz, Chris, Leilani, Hope and I wear. I have one that reminds me of Lottie. I have one that reminds me of my mother, art, music- one of them has the master password for all of my online accounts etched into one of the beads. The one you're holding represents the one that reminds me of Arly."

"You can't destroy that!"

"Why _not?_"

"Because she was special to you!"

"And she's murderous to me now!"

"But that doesn't mean that you should throw away these memories."

"Again: _why?_"

"I don't get it..." she murmured, ice blue eyes boring into bright, emotive cerulean ones, "You love her, don't you?"

She watched in fascination as Caleb clenched his fists, his lips pressing into a thin line, "Wh-..." for a second he was lost for words, "What does it _matter?_"

"It matters because she's a part of what makes you, you- the memories that you keep even beyond her normal death shaped a part of who you are. You can't just _amputate _that."

"What would you know?" he snapped at her.

"I know how you feel, and I know you can tell."

Caleb glared at her for the longest time before calmly placing his head in his hands once again. "You want to know if you had any impact on Tails' life, don't you? I can see it in your eyes, if you left a mark, it's going to hurt him when you're gone. If you didn't leave a mark, he's going to hurt you when you're wrong."

"Yeah..."

"I think it's better to make him remember you."

"How?"

"...Why don't you make him a bracelet?"

* * *

><p>He arrived at the Eggdome in a tizzy. Almost everyone from the Black Arms were gone, save for Amy and Silver. Silver accompanied him to the racetrack because past endeavours had proven that travelling by himself to the sport event of the decade was going to get him murdered. It was a fairly normal trip, save for the idiotic gangs that thought they could harm Tails. They were quickly dispatched with the help of Silver's telekinesis.<p>

He knew he was meant to be mingling with the fans and answering the questions from the reporters, but he'd learnt from last time and simply brushed them off as fast as possible while trying to get to the back of the player's preparation room. He was surprised upon entry, to see Caleb waiting for him.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

The fox shook his head a little, and Tails noticed he got his hair cut properly instead of the jagged mess that it was before. An expensive looking pair of glasses sat on his snout while a bulky camera hung from around his neck.

"I'm here to make sure you're alright while everyone... you know, does that _thing_."

"They're really doing it, are they?"

_They're really infiltrating Eggman's base?_

The older fox cast him a sideway's glance before nodding.

"So," Tails murmured, trying to compose himself, "what are you doing here?"

"They've got most of _us_ stationed around."

_GUN agents, probably._

"And how did you get into the players room?" he inquired, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh please," Caleb smirked, "the guards are still the fools that I beat at poker two races ago, remember? It was easy enough to bi-pass them. And since it's only you and Lightning here, there aren't a lot of people to tell on me. They think I'm a photographer."

"Lightning?"

The yellow fox looked around the player's room, eyes glued to the only other person there. Lightning Lynx.

"How do you know him?" he asked Caleb.

"My dad controls the Four Houses, remember?" he sounded irritated. "Lightning Lynx is part of the Raiju clan, by far the scariest out of all of them. They're led by the Bride of Conquering Storm, and she's one of the biggest bitches in existence. Lookie here. Lightning must be the representative for them."

"That does _not_ make me feel any better."

"I thought knowing more made you feel better? Whatever. You're up in like, ten minutes, so make sure your gear is alright. I can only handle enemies here, but since it's only you and Lightning on the track, you don't have anyone there that can help you there anymore."

"What do you mean 'anymore'?"

"I mean like how Honey and Arielle helped you last time. That definitely won't be happening this time around."

"I don't want it to. What the both of them did was sick and wrong."

"You're telling me," the older fox ran a hand through his much shorter hair, and Tails remembered why he needed to get a haircut in the first place. He was wearing a checkered scarf to cover up the massive scar Arielle dealt him in their last battle at the graveyard. "Just... be careful out there and make sure you don't _die._"

"Got it."

"Oh, here, I've got a good luck present for you," he said, fishing something out of his pocket. The familiar jangle of his hemp bracelets was oddly comforting.

"Aww, you shouldn't have," Tails replied sarcastically.

"I didn't." Caleb grinned, sticking out his tongue, "This is from Wave."

He dropped a purple hemp bracelet in his hand, bright blue beads weaved onto the intricacy of the patterns, with loose ends tipped with gold ones that shone bright and made a nice clink noise whenever they touched. He slipped it on, so that the bracelet hid underneath the Ark of the Cosmos that Wave had given him before his second race.

_I'll make you proud._

Upon being raised into the new track, he was assaulted with dozens of bright colourful lights and surrounding that seemed to shift and bend with the irritating music that was playing on loop in the background. He had to admit that there was something distinctly familiar about the entire course, he just couldn't place his finger on it. There was something odd about the entire scene though; it made him think of Cream.

"_**This is it, the very first of the races that will define our Extreme Gear champion, and **_**what**_** a way to begin our twelve-day marathon of non-stop racing programming. Here we have Miles 'Tails' Prower, better known to the public as Fox-trot, or -arguably- the best mechanic in all of Soleanna, lead technician of the Black Arms Workshop as well as the **_**youngest **_**competitor in competitive racing in Soleanna **_**ever **_**versing Lightning Lynx; a member of the mercenary group Destructix, as well as a renowned part of the Raiju clan, it's representative for today's race.**_

"_**What an exciting turn of events. I can't wait to see how this will turn out folks. Fox-trot is known for dishing out these last minute miracles but can his luck compare to the skill and merciless tactics of Lightning Lynx? We'll find out right after the break. This broadcast is brought to you by Captain Chao's Crunchy Flakes, putting a little chao cheer into your morning."**_

Tails made laughed a little at the ad, as the little bit of commercialisation made him forget that he was going to be racing for his life. Lightning Lynx opposite him cast him a glare, before his eyes softened into something resembling guilt. He looked at Tails several times before mustering up the courage to talk.

"I know you took a bullet for me... but I can't let that debt get in the way of this race."

The fox nodded before replying, "I know. But I won't be holding back either."

The lynx replied with another nod as they both waited for the race to begin. He was nervous, knowing that he was going one-on-one with someone instead of eight competitors at once. That means that there was seven more chances of losing, right? And one out of eight chances of winning? That didn't make sense, it was now fifty-fifty and his brain was being muddled up by the nerves.

_I have trust in myself and my gear._

Tails had looked over his gear during the examination in the Player's Room, only to find a nice surprise from Wave in the kinetics of his board. Normally, he would be pissed off that someone else had been tinkering with his gear, but he was actually very happy that she had. Not only did it say that she cared, but she'd also outfitted his board with grinding capabilities, meaning not only would he be allowed to use the thrusters to go through the accelerator rings, but he'd also manage to use the specified grind rails used for speed types. It gave his board more versatility and allow him to further explore which part of the track was the fastest.

He was knocked out of his thoughts by Omochao's voice again. He couldn't tell whether the ad break had gone so fast because he was nervous or because it was really thirty-seconds long.

"_**Welcome back , and if you'd missed the first part of the introduction our racing competitors are Fox-trot of Black Arms Garage versus Lightning Lynx of the Destructix and the Raiju clan going head to head in a battle to determine the fastest racer. Today's track is called Sega Illusion, and is guaranteed to leave you star-struck! Some of you might have seen the basis of this course, found in Twinkle Park's very own race track known as Sega Carnival."**_

_Oh, so that's why this place reminded me of Cream. That's her favourite course._

"_**Without further ado, racers in positions!"**_

Moving into the starting position was as easy as breathing now, it was like a battle stance, readying himself to pounce at a moment's notice. He analysed the section of the race that he could see; there was a small trick ramp that would allow him to get through some mechanised robots zipping forwards and backwards for at least a kilometer onwards, before they introduced a long winding road he couldn't see past.

_Okay, okay, that's manageable. All I have to do is make sure that I'm ahead or at least, really close to Lightning Lynx for the duration of the race._

The bright bar of green light started rushing towards them. Immediately after it fazed through Tails' sneakers he started sprinting for the electricity-barred starting line. He started having second thoughts the closer to the starting line he was. He watched with horror as the green light collided with the electricity, but the wall of lightning did _not_ fade out or lose power.

Tails slammed into starting line, electricity pumping through his body and singing his fur while his muscles spasmed in pain. The lightning slammed into his system at an alarming rate, enough to hurt, but not enough to kill.

_Shit!_

When the lightning stopped, he saw Lightning Lynx already bouncing off the first trick ramp and soaring over the Egg bots. Tails was furious. He hit the thrusters immediately in an attempt to catch up.

_I'm not sure if anyone else saw that, so I can't claim anything. _

He performed a double backflip over the first trick with effortless grace, but as soon as he landed he was run over by one of the mechanised robots, throwing him off his board and into a blind tumble.

"_**Ooo. Things are not working out well for Fox-trot. First he gets electrocuted at the starting line, and now this."**_

Omochao couldn't have been more right. He was absolutely sure that the green light bar hit the electricity in the beginning of the race, but it _didn't_ disappear like it usually did. Lightning Lynx was right behind Tails. He had enough time to stop when he realised Tails was being electrocuted.

_The electricity __**should**__ have disappeared, so why didn't it?_

The answer was staring him right in the face.

_Someone's sabotaging me. _

He was really sick of this.

Well... the only way to make sure he had the upper hand, was to use his own special power to even the odds.

Tails blinked and negative vision took over his normal senses. He saw the electricity pumping through the course and all the switches that could possibly be a hindrance as he dashed through the ground accelerators.

_If they want to play dirty, then I will too._

* * *

><p>In another part of the Egg dome, Silver was meeting up with Caleb in the Player's Room.<p>

"Did you see that?" he asked the fox who was viewing the race through one of the monitors.

"Yeah," he replied, "the starting bar hit the electricity barrier, but it didn't disappear. Tails should've started the race with a bonus air boost, but he didn't."

The silver hedgehog knew that there was something amiss this time around. They should have expected it. Tails was obviously more skilled a rider than Lightning Lynx, but it seemed that everything that made him a brilliant rider was going against him now. The both of them watched as Tails performed a trick off a half-pipe in order to reach the accelerator rings, only to find out that the accelerator rings were not working.

"This is bullshit!" Silver swore.

"Not entirely. Listen, I know where the controller room is, but I need someone to take out the cameras for me."

"Sure, lead the way."

They exited the player's room, moving along a surrounding corridor leading to the canteen and the bathrooms.

"Okay, now use your telekinesis to destroy the one in the corner," he instructed.

"How do you know it's there?"

"Because I memorised this part of the Egg dome last time I was here."

They travelled up a staircase and moved through a few more corridors.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Shut up."

"Maybe we should stop."

"And what? Ask for directions?" Caleb replied sarcastically.

"No. I can imagine how well that would go. 'Uh, excuse me. Do you mind telling me where the control room is so we can sabotage the entire race?"

"Aha! I found it! In your face, Silver!"

They knocked politely three times before someone bothered to answer the door. As soon as someone tried the door was blasted open by Silver's telekinetic powers.

"Nice work."

Caleb stepped over the wreckage to the door and sat himself down on the chair of the man that was knocked out by the blast. The remaining mobian technician, a squirrel, stared at the intruders shaking.

"Okay, so this is how it's going to work," the fox explained. "You're going to make this a _fair_ race, and dismiss all orders from whoever you answer and leave the crap sabotaging Fox-trot alone."

"N-no way!" the squirrel answered, but Caleb could sense the fear in him. "Fox-trot is a mutant, he shouldn't be in the race in the first-"

_Obedience._

"Yes sir," the technician replied, as if in a trance.

"'Sir'?" Silver laughed, placing the door back on it's hinges and fixing them with telekinesis.

"Oh be quiet," he grinned, leaning forward and taking care of a few traps that were set for Tails.

Silver observed the control panel wondering exactly how much trouble they had in mind for Fox-trot. Much of it was a messed up blur, Caleb had more of an idea of what was happening.

"You had a _lot_ of fucking traps lined up for him," the brown fox said to the other technician growling.

"They were my orders."

"Screw your orders," Silver replied, "just set everything back to the way it's supposed to be."

"Okay... so how is Tails doing now?"

* * *

><p>Tails was on the second lap of the race, currently dangling from one of the bloody booby traps hidden in the last leg of the race. Thanks to his free-running lessons, he got himself over the edge without much difficulty, but as he glanced towards one of the monitors lining the race, he was horrified to discover that Lightning Lynx was at the start of the last lap already.<p>

As the yellow fox started moving once again, afraid to hit the thrusters because the last time he'd careened right into a blockade, he noticed something; the booby traps had gone missing. There weren't any more holes in the ground, and the hazards now lie far away from the route that he was taking.

_Maybe I have a chance after all. _

And he did. He sped along at top speed, reaching the starting line and beginning his last lap. Lightning Lynx was still in vision, and when Tails switched from negative vision to normal sight his confidence had grown steadily.

"_**After a rocky start for Fox-trot it seems that he's starting to regain his mojo and momentum!"**_

_More like the sabotaging has stopped. I wonder why..._

In little less than twenty seconds, Tails was once again neck and neck with Lightning Lynx, the Raiju representative shocked and horrified to see that Tails had caught up. In this part of the race, next to the half pipes, the lynx was closer to a giant gap in the floor, and Tails was flanked on the left by another half pipe.

"Get out of my way!" Lightning demanded, bumping Tails on the side. Fortunately for Tails, this proved the perfect opportunity for the fox to perform two solid cartwheels before landing with effortless grace onto one of the grinding rails. This boosted the fox's acceleration and granted him the good fortune of discovering a short cut.

He met up with Lightning Lynx in the last huge curve before they entered the labyrinth of traps before the finish line. The lynx shoved him up against the wall, but Tails kicked off the side of the track and sent Lightning reeling.

"Why are you so desperate to win anyway?" Tails yelled.

"Because if I lose this race, then I'll be kicked out of the clan!"

"Would that be so bad?"

"Yes!" he yelled, as he hit his thrusters.

Tails heard a beeping noise coming from Lightning's gear, meaning that he was running out of air. That was it. Tails sped through the labyrinth at record speed, while on the monitors he watched as Lightning Lynx's board slowed to a stop.

"_**Fox-trot wins the race!"**_

He didn't get much time to celebrate though, because as soon as he was allowed back in the player's room Silver caught him and pushed him past three nosey reporters.

"What's wrong?"

"You need to go to Freedom Fighter HQ right now! There's been a distress signal and the people there need all the help they can get. I'll drop you off, but I need to head over to GUN, it looks like they're monitoring another disaster."

_Just sit tight, everyone. I'm coming to help. _

* * *

><p><em>stonefaced610<em>

* * *

><p>"Rotor! What's going on?" Tails was practically running when he burst into the main computer room at Freedom HQ, coming to a stop at the front of the room where Rotor and Nicole were working at the main console, Caleb on his heels the entire way.<p>

"Eggman got the drop on us," Rotor replied quietly, through teeth gritted in frustration, as he continued to work without looking up to face the fox kit. "I don't know what happened, we just got Wave's distress signal and that was it. I tried contacting everyone, but I couldn't get a hold of any of them."

"Okay, so?"

"So, Nicole and I hacked into Eggman's system, took a look at the cameras," the walrus answered, keeping focused on the work he was doing on the computer. Tails waited a few seconds, somewhat impatiently, for him to continue, but when he didn't, he lost what little patience he had left.

"And...?" he asked, almost at a shouting volume.

"And..." Rotor's voice trailed off and he stopped his furious tapping on the keyboard. He lowered his head and leaned over the console as he let out a pained sigh. Then he finally raised his gaze to look at Tails, and the fox saw that his eyes were filled with nothing but fear. "And we found them." He looked back to the computer and pressed a button on the console, causing three screens to flash from their readings of different pieces of computer code to three different videos, all of which filled him with terror upon watching them.

In the first, he saw Shadow, along with the rest of the GUN agents that had gone with him. He saw many who he recognized; Rouge, Leilani, Ash, Mytho, and Chris, and then a few others that he didn't. They were all floating around the room, like they were in an anti-gravity chamber. The chamber was pitch black, which gave it the illusion of being in outer space. The only source of light he could see was what came in from the ceiling through the giant, spinning... _Holy shit, was that a fan?_ Eggman had them all bouncing around inside an anti-gravity chamber with a giant fan blade in the middle of the ceiling that was currently spinning too fast for the naked eye to see it, promising to chop anything and anyone who came to it into thin, bloody slices. On top of that, the unpredictable air circulation the fan gave the room only made the entire situation even more deadly, sending all the agents floating around inside bouncing off the walls uncontrollably.

The second screen was just as bad, if not worse. This one showed a room that was basically a giant, metal box, and it was over half-filled with water. Like the first screen with the GUN agents, Tails saw faces of people that he recognized and didn't recognize; Sonic, Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, Mina, and others he had seen before, but never met. The only problem was that that was all he could see. Their faces. They were all just barely breaking the surface of the water that flooded the room. They were all lined up against the walls, struggling to keep their noses and mouths above the water so they could breathe.

"Eggman's got them all shackled to the wall," Rotor interjected. "When Nicole and I first accessed the feed, he was still filling the room up. Now he's filled it up so they all have to fight in their restraints to keep their heads up for air." Tails was silent. He was too shocked and horrified to speak right now. "He's torturing them, Tails."

The fox turned his attention to the third screen, where the camera showed a scene that was much calmer, yet no less horrific than the others.

It showed the Babylon Rogues in an empty cell, huddled up in the far corner, Storm lying up against the wall with Jet and Wave both hugged close to him. They looked like they were unconscious, even like they could be dead. Their feathers were ruffled and messy, their clothes were ripped up all over, they were all bleeding slightly in several places on their bodies, and they looked weaker than he had ever seen them before. He was actually about to ask if they _were_ dead, but his question was answered when Wave's head twitched slightly and she gave a small, weak shudder.

"What's happening with the Rogues?" Tails asked Rotor quietly, almost absentmindedly, still unable to remove his gaze from the images on the screens.

"Well, I can't say for certain, Tails, but from the looks of the symptoms and the context of the situation, my guess is oxygen starvation." Rotor went back to working at the computer, shutting the camera feed off, allowing Tails to finally look away from the screens. "He's probably thinning the air out in the room, but only just enough to where they're still barely alive."

"How long have they all got?" Tails asked, still quiet, recovering from the shock that the videos had caused him.

"As long as Eggman wants," Rotor answered. "He's got control of the GUN agents' gravity, the Freedom Fighters' water level, and the Rogues' air supply. He can kill all of them whenever he wants, and all he has to do is push a button."

"Then let's go." Tails turned on his heels, taking his extreme gear in its pack-mode off his back and into his hands, preparing to deploy it the second he made it out the door.

"Wait, what?" Rotor turned from the computer to look at Tails. "Go where?"

"To rescue them, of course," the fox kit answered in a determined growl, already halfway to the door. "Who's with me?"

"R- Rescue?" Rotor stammered. "What, now? Tails, you've got no plan, no backup-"

"I was counting on you guys for backup!"

"You don't even know where you're going!"

_Damn._ Tails stopped in his tracks, literally feet from the door. He clenched his fists and exhaled angrily before turning back, dropping his gear/pack to the floor, to face the walrus with a hard glare.

"Tell me where they are."

"No."

"Rotor!"

"No! Tails, I'm not gonna let you run into this head first, by yourself, half-cocked."

"Well, what else is there to do?" Tails noticed that he was now standing right in front of Rotor. He hadn't even noticed that he had moved away from the door until he was already across the room.

"We can stay here, and come up with a rescue plan that'll actually work."

"Stay here? Rotor, we don't have time for that! Like you said, Eggman's got his finger on the button-!"

"Yes! Exactly! So, what happens if you get there and he decides to press it when he sees you coming?"

"He won't see me coming! I'll be careful!"

"You're actually willing to take that risk?" Rotor challenged.

"Is it really worse than the risk you wanna take by having us take our time?"

"We only get one shot at this, so we have to make sure it's right. All our friends' lives depend on it."

"But Rotor, we need to-!"

"No! I'm the one in charge here, right now, and I've made the decision." Tails, after being cut off so abruptly by the walrus's declaration, silently fumed as he watched him sit back down at the computer he had been working at. "I'm gonna pull up everything we scouted from Eggman's base while Nicole keeps trying to break into his systems. If you wanna get going so badly, Tails, then help out by getting all of the plans the Freedom Fighters made off that desk over there." He nodded to a large table on the other side of the room that was littered with different papers. "It might help to counter-reference the plans they had. If we work quickly, we could probably have something workable figured out in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."

"Fifteen minutes?" Tails cried in protest. "Come on! Eggman could kill everyone off in less than that. They could all be dead before we even get out the door!"

"Then stop arguing and get working." The fox let out a loud yell of frustration as he ran/stomped over to the table and started grabbing papers off it and piling them together.

"Fifteen minutes..." he grumbled to himself in his frustration. _Now I know why_ he's _never in charge. Sonic would have been out the door by now. Sally would have been, too, probably... But they're both practically drowning right now, and he wants to sit down and make a plan... _

_Drowning... They're all drowning... All the Freedom Fighters... Almost everyone that he could call a friend... And not just them, the GUN agents, too... Shadow... And Rouge... And Sonic... And everyone... Worst of all... _

_Wave... _

"Wave..." Tails instinctively glanced down at the hemp bracelet she had made for him as he whispered her name. That's when he saw it; behind the bracelet, under his wrist, sitting on the table, just barely edging out from under some other papers on the table. The corner of the painted blue canvas. He didn't know what it was at first; he just thought it was weird for a painting to be buried among all the plans for infiltrating Eggman's base. But he barely needed to glance at it to see the marker tracings on it and see that it was a map of Soleanna, and right in the Forbidden Sector was a big, black "X" with coordinates written under it.

He didn't waste any time. As soon as he'd seen the coordinates, made the connection that they were the location of Eggman's base, he bolted. Right across the room, grabbing his gear that he'd left by the door and dashing out, deploying his gear and stepping on before he took even a step outside the plane of the computer room. He burst out the building's exit onto the streets of Soleanna just in time to hear the loud echoes of Rotor's angry shouts carry out after him, telling him to come back.

"Pshh, yeah, right."

* * *

><p><strong>a|n<strong>

Remember to leave a review!~**  
><strong>


	62. Risk It All

**a|n**

Thanks to **Ija, The Loner in the Shadows, Daddler The Dalek, Yuke Navy Pilot, Guest, Exploder, Ricky, Vigi, Blaze of Fury, A Drunk Pigeon, hateyuforever, Halfwrite** and** Numbuh 006.**

Thank you guys so much for 700 reviews! I never could have made it without you.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Sixty One  
>.<em>  
>"You're my dearest treasure, and for you I'd take my heart and soul and I'd risk it all."<br>…_  
>Witchcraft <em>by Pendulum

* * *

><p>It was all well and good. In theory. It's <em>always<em> okay in theory. That is what makes theoretical anything-ending-with-'ology' okay because it's _just_ theory. You can always rub the mistake out and try again. It's not like that in real life. That is what makes it so scary, because you can never take back these mistakes. That is why Wave respects people that do things without thinking, and loathes them as well. They're not held back by the 'what ifs' and sometimes it turns out okay, which is good, but then again- one never likes to look at what could turn monumentally catastrophic either, huh?

_This_ is what is monumentally catastrophic; the end game, with no 'Plan B's, C's, D's, etcetera, while having your family with you slowly starving out the oxygen from this puny little jail cell smelling of musky old bird. There was no contact, no open panels, no means for _hope, _for _survival._ So what was there to do, but wait and die? She'd thought about the plan for what seemed like hours. It sounded perfect, did it not? Maybe that's why it'd failed them so badly; because they put so much faith in the plan they ignored their instincts, and they waited until it was far too late. They were _doomed._

**thirty minutes earlier.**

Everything had been running smoothly. That was it right? The deciding factor? Because everything was running smoothly, she _should_ have been suspicious, a teensy bit paranoid that something was going wrong. Unfortunately, they didn't notice it until it was too late. It was like something out of a horror movie; the calm before the zombie apocalypse. They were unprepared.

Wave signalled as the Babylon Rogues and the Freedom Fighter's split ways, after they had entered the base. Both of their distractions were working perfectly, with the majority of GUN agents attacking the second point of entry and a ragtag group assaulting the main entrance. She had programmed the holographic map of the labyrinth that was Doctor Eggman's secret laboratory, and memorised most of the main details to conduct the break and enter. Even though Jet was their leader, she expertly guided them to the corridor containing the cell of her long lost grandfather.

_I can't believe I'm going to see Grandpa again! After so much time, we're finally going to be reunited._

It was _so_ perfect. The corridor was flawless, totally free of any Egg pawns or machine guns. There was even a lack of security cameras, or public announcement speakers. Wave was just too happy to see her grandfather at the end of the hall. There was a door in the glass containment unit. Jet, Storm and Wave hopped off their gears and started running towards their Grandfather's cage.

Suddenly, excruciating pain slammed into them like a tidal wave. It felt like she were being frozen, burnt and electrocuted all at once. Her eyes were shocked open, an instinctive reaction. She saw her grandfather looking through his cage at them with abject horror. That was when she saw the pink-red light surrounding herself and her brothers, right before she blacked out.

_Black Arms weaponry. _

**present.**

She supposed that was the reason that GUN and the Freedom Fighters had also succumed to their fate so fast**(i)**. They should have been expecting Eggman to pull a trick up his sleeve, and he did. Many of the mutants that came to the base were 'natural' mutants, and thus were affected by the strange Black Arms technology. She had thought that Eggman was ignorant of the difference between natural mutants and Black Arms descendants, but apparently he was not. They'd put up a Black Arm's trap in front of their grandfather's unit, and now they were trapped in this glass prison, slowly running out of air. They might have been good at controlling their breathing, but it didn't mean that they could get out of an airless chamber alive.

_I just wish I saw this coming!_

They were very aware that Eggman was getting his hands on these strange technologies; Tails and Knuckles had been attacked by these kinds of weapons**(ii)**, for goodness sake! Why hadn't they thought that this would happen? Eggman weedled out the natural mutants, and the strength of his robots could take out anyone that was left behind to put in these death traps. And that was it. The Babylon Rogues were going to die of suffocation. GUN were going to be butchered. The Freedom Fighter's were going to drown.

She had to think of a way out, but what was she going to do?

* * *

><p>Sneaking into Eggman's secret compound had been easy once Tails disassembled the laser trip wires and safely gotten over the fence. He deduced that the lack of patrol or guards was because of his other friends causing havoc at the base. The base itself looked like a large cylindrical building, with a main entrance at the bottom which had been completely destroyed. He was wary of absolutely everything as he jumped over the rubble of the door, turning Negative Vision on immediately, hoping it would help to discern where his friends were.<p>

A few floors from where he was, he saw what looked like giant pumps moving at an alarming rate, and several very faint electrical pulses along a wall. Tails had earlier recognised these very, very faint electricity marks as life forces, and so realised that this must have been the Freedom Fighter group if they were next to a water tank.

Quick as lightning, he kept close to the walls in an attempt to figure out how to ascend the floors, finding a convenient set of stairs in the same area. He tried to keep using Negative Vision to a minimum as there was so much technology around him there was a good chance he might be overwhelmed by the electrical paths. There were no robots up until the point where he reached the room containing the pumps, and what looked like the pipe that lead into the room the Freedom Fighter's were chained in.

To his horror, the light of some of the Freedom Fighter's were going out completely.

_Please don't let them be dead. Please don't let them be dead. _

The only way to turn off the water pump, was to get into the room. He was horrified when he realised that there was an Egg Giant guarding the only way in. Horrible images of the day the cemetery was destroyed flashed in his mind.**(iii)**

_My friends are in there __**dying**__, I need to man-up and face it._

Breathing heavily, he turned into the room and sprinted inside- surprised when an unknown force caught up with him and sent every single one of his nerve endings on fire.

_WHAT WAS THAT?!_

Fighting against the pain, he crawled inside the room- amazed when he realised that the pain was dimming, and once he was within arms radius of the Egg Giant, the pain had disappeared altogether.

_Why is that so? _He hid behind some machinery and observed the entrance. Tails' negative vision revealed the blue aura of Babylonian technology hidden amongst the workings of the door.

_That's strange. Isn't the Babylonian technology supposed to knock me out, because I am a Black Arms mutant? That's a little strange. _

He didn't have much time to dwell on it, because as soon as he turned around, the Egg Giant slammed a huge metal fist down, revealing floor paneling sparking with broken wires. Tails wasn't stupid though, he didn't have the same time frame as when he was fighting the first Egg Giant- the good thing was that it had been months since that fight, and he was stronger, better and faster. He hopped from the giant armed hand, waiting for the robot to use his other hand to slam the first one. He performed the perfect back flip onto the giant's head and placed his hands onto the flat of his head, using Negative Vision to completely smash his hard drive, resulting in the final power down of the robot.

As soon as the robot fell to the floor, Tails examined the pumps for the water into the next room, thanking Solaris that there was a simple on/off switch which he immediately turned off. But he knew that the Freedom Fighters were still in danger. Using Negative Vision, he found the giant pipe that led to the room he assumed the Freedom Fighter's were in, unfortunately there was no entrance to the pipe in the room.

_I'm going to have to blow the floor up. But how? I should have used the self destruct sequence on the robot. _

The robot!

Tails knew there was a machine gun attached to the robot's arm. Why didn't he think of this before?

He disassembled the robot's arm, finding the gunpowder and... crap... he needed a container to put it in... He ripped open the chest panel of the robot and looked around for something flexible.

"Ah, copper, this should be easy enough to bend." He created a small little container that was almost holeless and shifted some of the gunpowder inside.

"Crap... I need a wick... or some..." The first thing that Tails thought of, wasn't the best choice, but it was the only thing that he could think of in this situation. He winced as he plucked out a few long hairs from the end of his tail and stuffed it into the makeshift bomb before using the sparks in the floor panelling to set it on fire. Once it was lit, he dropped the bomb and ran to the farthest edge of the room that he could, hiding behind some more machinery before there was an earth shattering BOOM!

When he looked out from behind the machinery there was a huge hole in the floor spouting water everywhere, and there was a clear entrance into the pipe which led to the Freedom Fighter's torture room. Without hesitation, he jumped in.

If he was any other animal, except for save a cat or a bat, navigating in this darkness would have been impossible, lucky enough, it didn't take him long to find the strainer at the bottom of the chamber with the Freedom Fighter's inside. He disabled all the locks on the strange device, and -using all the strength he had- opened the pipe. There was a small opening, where the gravity was going to be durable, but it wasn't going to last long. His arms were aching as he forced himself upwards into the room, totally forgetting about the fact that he needed to _breath_eas well. He was skinny enough to fit into the small opening, which was now slowly draining all of the water in the room. Tails clawed to the edge of the room, while the water started to turn into a giant whirlpool. He managed to latch onto a crag in the wall while the rest of his body resisted suction into the giant pool.

It took a little over three minutes, but soon enough, the entire room was empty, and while Tails caught a well needed breather, he started using his technopath skills to free everyone from their restraints on the wall.

"Tails!"

Sonic rushed over to him, waiting a moment when he was at the fox to completely shake the water from his fur and cough out some that had been nestling in his throat.

"Man am I glad you arrived here in the nick of time. Everybody owes you their lives man!"

"Yeah," Tails said sadly, looking over to the Freedom Fighter's that were not moving, "Except the ones that aren't going to wake up."

"_TAILS!"_

Sonic's communicator screamed out to them, making Tails flinch at the volume.

"What's up?" the blue hedgehog held up the communicator so that both Tails and Sonic were in Rotor and Nicole's line of vision.

"What do you mean 'What's up?'" Rotor said angrily, "Tails, you directly disobeyed my order."

"Rotor, I know you might have missed the memo," the fox said, "but I'm not really one for obeying orders."

"Go easy on him," Sally grinned, clapping Tails' back. "We'd be dead without him."

"Guys," Tails groaned, turning towards the both of them, "I need to know where the Rogue's are."

"Tails," Sonic said, "I know you really want to save them, but shouldn't we get the GUN agents first? There's more of them."

"But the Babylon Rogue's are running out of _oxygen._"

"But-"

"We know; you want to save Wave, but the GUN agents have got all the information that we came here for," Sonic reasoned with him. Tails wasn't very happy about it.

"Tails," Sally sighed, "we need your power to save the _majority _of people."

He scowled at the both of them, understanding where they were both coming from, but irrationally wanting to disobey the both of them. "Okay, fine. We have to be quick!"

"Wait a second!" Sonic trotted alongside Tails as the fox went over to the door of the room and disabled all of the locks keeping it together. "Tails, how did you get past the invisible force field?"

"What force field?" the mechanic replied in aggravation.

"You know! Well... I might not... It's like a barrier of _pain._"

"Do you mean the entranceway lined with Black Arms machinery?"

"What do you mean _Black Arms_ machinery?"

Tails rubbed at one of his eyes and turned on his Negative Vision, making his way back to the room he left his Extreme Gear by. "I mean alien technology; you know the kind that Knuckles was talking about before? The kind that got you out of your race."

"How did you get past it? Did you disable it?"

"I can't disable it," Tails shook his head.

"Well then _how_ did you get past it?"

"I just got past it, Sonic. I don't know how."

"It doesn't work for the rest of us, Tails," Sonic uttered. "As soon as about half of us passed that barrier, we passed out due to the pain. Some of them... you know..."

_...died. _

"I can't explain how I got passed," he shook his head, "let's just get going. I want to make sure it's not too late."

"Do you guys know where the GUN agents are?" Tails asked, groaning when he didn't hear any response.

"_I can tell you where they are,"_ Nicole said through Sonic's communicator. _"You have to move up five levels before you reach their room. Hurry before someone gets hurt!"_

* * *

><p>Tails knew he would never have made it to the anti-gravity chamber in time had it not been for the Freedom Fighters. They could tell Eggman was spooked by how they somehow got out because there was a barrage of robots when they next escalated for a floor. It was extremely hard to navigate in these circumstances, luckily Nicole was more forgiving of Tails' actions and continued to offer guidance as to where they were going.<p>

The anti-gravitational chamber was completely sealed off. Figures.

Tails walked up to the wall and raised an eyebrow, "This metal is weak, it should be fine to break through with a spin dash."

"One spin dash, coming up!" Sonic announced before he heard Tails shrieked, "NO!"

As soon as Sonic broke through the wall, he was absorbed into the anti-gravitational field and lost his sense of control over where he was moving. "Oh crap."

"'Oh crap' is right!" Sally screamed, taking the words right out of Tails' mouth. He would have yelled the same thing. Sometimes Sonic forgot to think these kinds of things through.

The rest of the Freedom Fighter's watched the GUN agents through the hole in the wall that Sonic had made, gasping whenever an agent got too close to the giant fan in the ceiling. The fox didn't know much that could manipulate anti-gravity except...

He thought of something that Knuckle's had mentioned before- something that he had seen in the Black Market**(iv)**. He'd said something about a device that turned gravity around whenever someone touched it. There must have been something of the sort surrounding the room. If only Tails could go in there and examine the panelling. He might have been able to figure out how to... Negative Vision... right...

He blinked to turn it on, finding the glowing switch among the machinery sounding the anti-gravitational deathbox, but at a loss of exactly how he was going to adjust it. There was no off switch, and Tails realised before that any technology he didn't understand when using his technopathic abilities, he wouldn't be able to manipulate. So turning the switch off was out of the question, since he hadn't gone into so much research when dealing with anti-gravitational forces.

_How am I going to get in there to destroy the switch when I could just end up being stuck like the rest of them?_

Tails observed the agents once again.

"Tails, 'ave ya got any ideas, Suga'?" Bunnie asked, placing her robotic limb on Tails' shoulder while his brain ticked with an idea.

He pulled down the edge of his gloves, confirming that he _did_ in fact, have his Ark of the Cosmos with him. He beamed, _Finally, I have something to confront this problem with. _

Unfortunately, Tails didn't have a way to carve through the metal like Sonic could. Sure, his Tails could beat a robot senseless on normal terms, but they were still healing and didn't feel that cooperative today of all days. Sonic could carve through the metal, but he had no control over where he was going. Tails estimated that he probably still wouldn't be enough to carve through the switch anyway.

_Shadow can perform a spin-dash too. _

Although Tails didn't know Shadow's fighting style as thoroughly as Sonic's he was sure there was a great similarity between the styles- both being able to travel past the speed of sound.

_How am I going to do this?_

Forgetting that he hadn't explained anything to Sally or any of the other Freedom Fighter's he jumped through the hole in the wall that Sonic had created, being sucked into the anti-gravitational room.

"Tails!" a lot of the Freedom Fighters screamed at the same time.

"Calm down!" he told them before summoning the power of the Ark of the Cosmos and using it's power to zip from one side of the other, grabbing Sonic's wrist.

"Woah, how are you doing that?"

Tails showed Sonic the bracelet and said, "Wave gave me this before the second race. It helps me control gravity."

"It's good your girlfriend gets you gifts that are so practical," Sonic grinned, and Tails rolled his eyes.

He used the Cosmos to zip in the direction of Shadow, who was on the other side of the room. Sonic grabbed his wrist and they all floated in gravity for a bit as Tails explained the plan to them.

"Okay, I am going to send you guys in the right direction for a massive spin-dash to destroy the switch that's keeping all of the GUN agents afloat. Okay?"

"How do you know where the switch is?" Shadow asked him.

"I can see it," Tails said, pointing to the place on the wall where the switch was hidden. He knew Shadow and Sonic couldn't see it, but he just shrugged and said, "Just take my word for it." The fox brought them to the centre of the room, a good distance away from the switch-wall before he raised his hands and set both Sonic and Shadow inside the gravity pull. "Okay, start your spin-dash."

"But we're not going to get anywhere."

"You will, trust me."

Sonic and Shadow both started spinning, like two spiky pinwheels, as Tails struggled to keep them in line with the switch they had to destroy.

"Brace yourselves!" he yelled to everyone in the room before he released the gravitational pull and Sonic and Shadow were sent straight through the switch, utterly destroying it. All of the GUN agents fell to the floor of the giant room, while Sonic and Shadow detangled themselves from the electronic wires in the ceiling before joining everyone else.

"Tails, that was amazing," Rouge complimented him, patting him on the head.

"Without you, we'd definitely be dead meat," Chris said.

Tails nodded to them, turning to Sonic and saying, "You promised. Where are the Babylon Rogues?"

"_Tails!"_ Nicole yelled from Sonic's communicator, _"It looks like the Babylon Rogues have fallen unconscious, you have to hurry before they're starved of oxygen."_

"Shit..." Tails hopped through the hole in the wall Sonic had made, followed quickly by the rest of the GUN agents. "Just tell me where to go."

_Hold on a little longer, Wave. I'm coming for you._

* * *

><p>Absolutely nothing stood in Tails' way. With the combined power of the Freedom Fighters and the GUN agents, none of the robots barring them from the Babylon Rogues' cell stood a chance. They were in the final corridor now. Tails could see their goal at the end of the hallway, only a few things stood in their way; the aura of Black Arms weaponry, and the robots guarding the cell.<p>

Tails stopped everyone before they were absorbed into the light pink field of the Black Arms light. He could see it, even without his Negative Vision. Eventually, everyone else came to see it too. Unfortunately, they also came to see the Babylonian force field a few meters beyond that.

_Well, I actually managed to survive the Babylonian assault when I was trying to free the Freedom Fighters. I can survive it a second time. And I am a Black Arms mutant, so the second field might not hurt as much. _

"Tails, we can't go through that. Going through the wrong field immediately makes us pass out," Sally said.

"If you're a non-mutant, or the wrong kind of mutant... for some reason, I think I can go through both."

Tails ignored their protest as he leapt through the first field. He collapsed on the other side. It felt like running through the electricity during his last race, but the pain subsided enough for him to make it through the second force field. Going through the second Black Arms force field didn't hurt as much as going through the Babylonian field. He wondered why he didn't pass out like everyone else. He moved from a walk, to a run, to a sprint as he neared the Babylon Rogues' glass jail cell, banging on it as if that was going to do something useful.

Just when he thought he'd finally reached them, two Egg Giants appeared out of the floor, supposedly waiting for someone to come to their rescue.

He heard the Freedom Fighters and GUN agents screaming as they waited at the edge of the barriers. Tails groaned upon their entrance. Darting back so he could focus on both of them, using the same trick he'd used to make the first Egg Giant back at the graveyard self destruct. The both of them fell limp as they started their countdown to self destruct, but then Tails realised something; he was trapped in between the Egg Giants and the force field.

_Oh crap! I didn't think it through!_

He rushed up to the Rogues' cell and placed his hands on the glass. There was a door which no doubt required time to open. There was a hinge on it, which if he could destroy, would open immediately. He jumped onto one of the Egg Giants, quickly reviving very quickly to aim it's machine-gun laden hand at the door of the cell and completely blasting the hinge and lock apart.

The countdown reached ten seconds.

_10_

Tails jumped off the robot.

_9_

He rushed over to the door.

_8_

The fox tried to open the door.

_7_

He realised he slightly deformed the lock.

_6_

He started panicking, slamming his hand onto the glass.

_5_

He grabbed the handle and heaved with all of his might.

_4_

The door started to give way.

_3_

He stopped and tried once again, praying.

_2_

The door gave way...

_1_

And Tails slipped inside, slamming it shut again.

_Initiating self destruct. _

The blasts of the two combined Egg Giants rocked the very floor of the cell, and Tails couldn't see anything beyond black smoke and fire. He turned back to the Rogues, immediately going to Wave and shaking her. All of their movements started to increase, their chest started rising, and before he knew it they were all breathing properly and their eyes were opening.

"...Tails..." Wave said, raising a hand to them.

"All of you," Tails turned to their newest addition, an elderly looking swallow that was no doubt, Wave's grandfather. "We have to get out of here! I know you're probably sick and nauseous, but you have all the time to complain after we get you out of here."

"Get my grandfather..." she murmured, as she used the side of the cell to get up.

The Babylon Rogues got up fairly quickly, but the old man needed a lot more help, so Tails went over to him and slung his arm behind his neck and started moving him along. They were fine up until the point where they needed to get through the force field.

Tails thought of the only person who could destroy Black Arms machinery.

"Shadow!"

"Yes?" he replied.

"You remember everything right? Do you remember how to disassemble your people's force field?"

"Not exactly," he said, "but I remember how to destroy them."

"That works too."

Shadow told everyone to stand back and prepared himself for a spin-dash, hurtling from one corner of the corridor to the other, completely shredding the metal holding it together and destroying the Black Arms force field. The Rogues got through the Babylonian field with no trouble. Storm stood in front of Tails to accept their grandfather. Tails handed him over before slipping past the Babylonian force field. It still hit him with all the pain of before, immediately sending him into exhaustion. He was so tired and in so much pain it was too hard to focus.

The Rogue's looked like they'd almost healed from their oxygen deprivation. He made sure all of them were okay before grabbing his Extreme Gear.

"Hey..." Wave said, "I can't remember where my Gear is. Oh shit, I lost it!"

"We don't have time for that, Wave," Jet said, sounding slightly out of breath.

"We have a GUN helicopter that can carry all of you," a woman with short brown hair and blue eyes, dressed in GUN agent garb told all of them.

"Thank goodness," Wave said looking towards her grandfather, who'd yet to wake up. She turned to Tails, collapsing on him in a hug. "Thank you so much for saving us."

As they all evacuated Eggman's facility, their relief flooded a sense of evil foreboding. Their actions set off a chain of events that would lead Soleanna into ruin, but they wouldn't know until it was too late.

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><strong>notes<strong>

**(i) Black Arms** weaponry/equipment and **Babylonian** weaponry/equipment are remnants of these ancient races. They both have the ability to lethally kill regular humans/Mobians, plus the opposite race. **Black Arms** destroys _Babylonian_ mutants, while _Babylonian_ weapons destroy _Black Arms_ mutants. Both emit a coloured force field. The Black Arms field is pink-red, while the Babylonian field is blue.

**(ii) **This is so sad, but I actually can't remember when _Knuckles_ was knocked out of the **Grand Prix**, but he was knocked out through the use of **Black Arms Weaponry. **Tails was assaulted by one of MarDean's friends in Ch 54: Time Bomb, by a _Babylonian _weapon which caused him to fall unconscious.

**(iii)** Who can forget this scene? In Ch 5, Tails single-handedly destroyed an Egg Giant that was ruining the cemetery where he kept a make-shift version of his parent's graves. This was right before he signed up for _The Grand Prix._

**(iv) **In Ch 20, Knuckles had his first trip to the **Black Market**. There he witnessed a device, that when pressed, turned gravity upside down. This device was featured in _Sonic Heroes_ in Hang Castle and Mystic Mansion.

**a|n**

Review please.


	63. Film Reel

**a|n**

Thanks to **Numbuh 006**, **ADrunkPigeon**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **HalfWright**, **Exploder**, **Ricky**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Guest**, **hateyuforever**, **insidious fanboy**, **LordCooler**,** superechidna** and **Heartless demon wolf **for reviewing the last few chapters.

**Ricky~** I am _so_ glad that you're enjoying this fanfiction. It brings me great joy to know that people are reading my work and liking it.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p><em>Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. ~Stephen Vincent Benét<em>  
>…<strong><br>Anthem of Our Dying Day**  
>.<em><br>Chapter Sixty-Three  
>.<em>  
>"I can't leave you waiting, but I can't stay and watch the city burn. Watch it burn."<br>…_  
>I'll Try <em>by Jesse McCartney

* * *

><p>"Wave, are you sure about this?"<p>

The words were whispers floating about the Black Arms Garage at three o'clock in the morning. She was feeling tired and breakable on this relatively quiet morning. Slowly the swallow packed away her tools, sealing the handle of her box with a bright violet ribbon. She cast her eyes around the garage, taking in the details she would miss the most; Tails' half-filled coffee mug, pieces of Shadow's sketches hanging next to the Gear with his designs on them, the log book- filled to the brim with details in three different sets of handwriting; Shadow's, Tails and her own, she'd even miss the wallpaper of the ancient computer they used to handle all of their Gear requests; an image of all of them after they'd pranked Caleb on the couch. She'd been so happy here, happier than she'd been in years, and now it was all going to end.

"Shut up!" she demanded, the lump in her throat and the burning behind her eyes becoming almost unbearable. "B-be quiet. I don't want to… I don't want to smudge my make up."

"Wave…" surprisingly enough, it wasn't her brothers but her grandfather that spoke this time, placing his hand on her shoulder. "If you need a little more time, dear one."

"N-no," she shook her head, wiping away the tears with the back of her glove. "No, no, no. That won't be necessary."

"But…"

"We don't have the time, Grandpa," she spluttered, simply making excuses for herself while she loaded her toolbox onto the back of Storms Air Bike. "Eggman is already looking for us, and it's apparent he already knows where the Black Arms Garage is. There's a spy among the people here, and we have to make sure we've left before they can do any real damage. Eggman is going to be furious when he realises you're gone."

"Okay," Jet said. His voice low and gentle. She hated how her family was treating her like some delicate flower. Whatever! Seriously, it was only a broken heart. Girls experienced this useless drama all the time. Nothing new. "Have you got everything you need?"

"Actually, I'm missing my favourite spanner…" she said, rummaging around Tails' desk, knowing that he liked to steal it a lot because he'd lost his own. She almost started breaking down when she found something that was hidden amongst the trash. It was a new board, painted pink and violet, just like her old one. It was a bit bland in comparison to her old one, but he'd remembered a whole lot of details she was sure anyone else would have forgotten, like the streamline shape she'd showed him once- told him she adored, the two gravitational cores at the bottom of the board were the same colour as his eyes, all of the buttons mirrored the places she'd placed them on the original board. Tails had attempted to make a replica of her board for her. She smiled through her tears, wiping them away so she could read a note trapped between the panels of the glove compartment.

_I know it's not what you're used to, but I tried to get it as close as possible. You can think of it as a good luck charm, so don't go smashing it into walls like I did. _

_-Kitty_

"T-Tails…" she sobbed, pressing the gear to her chest. She sniffed and tried to regain control once again. She picked up the spanner, about to place it in her toolbox before she thought better of it, and simply left it among Tails' things.

"Thank you, for everything… And farewell."

* * *

><p><em>Written by Stonefaced610<em>

* * *

><p><em>She didn't even bother to say goodbye.<em>

Tails walked along his rack of boards, on the wall of the garage, brushing his hand along on the boards' edges until he came to the one he was looking for. He pulled the board out and looked it over in his hands, switching between normal and Negative vision to make sure that there was nothing at all wrong with his board. He knew he would have to make a few small modifications before his next race, but everything in it seemed fine for now. He decided that he would take it out for a test ride. He'd rather be out riding, right now, than skulking around the Black Arms being depressed. He was about to activate the board and drop it so he could hop on, but he was stopped short by a voice behind him.

"Hey!" Tails turned around to the staircase that led back up into the house, finding Sonic taking the last few steps down to the garage, watching him curiously.

"Hey," the fox returned the greeting half-heartedly, shifting the board to hold it under his arm.

"What'cha doing?" the hedgehog asked quietly.

"I was looking over my board to make sure it's ready for the race," Tails answered. "I'm about to take it out for a test run."

"You think it'd be cool if we talked a minute?"

"Depends; what about?" Tails asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"I wanted to talk to you about the other day at the base raid."

"If you're gonna tell me that I was stupid and reckless for running off when Rotor told me not to, then save it," the young fox snapped, turning away and preparing to mount his board again. "I'm not in the mood right now."

"Whoa, dude, dial down the hostility," Sonic said slowly, holding his hands up in a 'calm down' gesture. "I just wanted to say that I was actually kind of impressed with how you handled yourself in there." Tails looked back at him, surprised.

"Really?" the hedgehog smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I mean, sure, you _were_ stupid and reckless for running in like you did, but you handled yourself pretty well. I think I actually saw a side of you I'd never seen before. You were brave, strong, confident, quick thinking; I saw you do things I didn't ever think I'd see you do. You took down Egg Giants, you saved the Freedom Fighters from that insane water trap, then you saved GUN, too, when no one else even had an idea about what to do, _and then_ you saved the Rogues on top of all that. You were awesome!"

"You really think so?" Tails asked, his mood changing from surly and depressed to more of a modest one.

"Hell yeah!" Sonic replied happily. "Tails, you were basically a hero." The fox looked up at Sonic with the faint visage of a grin tugging at the edges of his mouth. Sonic was just glad that he had managed to get a smile out of the kit. "Basically, all I'm trying to say is that I was really impressed with what I saw from you out there, and that I'm really proud of you."

"Thanks, Sonic," Tails said quietly, feeling a lot better now than he had all day. Sonic smiled at him and brought him into a bear hug, which he returned after placing his board on the floor as carefully as he could without breaking the embrace. He was glad that Sonic had helped him to lift his spirits. He'd been in a bad mood all day, and he probably would be back in it soon, but he was happy that he could enjoy this good mood while he had it.

"Sure thing, lil' buddy," the hedgehog returned as they broke their hug. "And, look, seeing you now, I know without a doubt that if anyone's going to take Eggman down, it's gonna be you." Tails chuckled slightly and he felt his smile widen. "Just promise me one thing, bud, and tell me that, when you do, you'll let me in on the action." Tails nodded.

"Sure thing, Sonic," he answered.

"Yeah, don't forget I have a score to settle with him, too." Sonic nudged him jokingly.

"Yeah, I know," Tails answered, looking down slightly. "A lot of people do."

"Yeah," Sonic sighed quietly. "Okay, well, I'll let you get back to your board and stuff." He patted the young fox on the shoulder and turned to walk away.

"Okay, I'll see you later," Tails called after him, still smiling slightly. Sonic responded with a two-fingered wave over his shoulder as he started back up the stairs. Tails turned and tossed his board out in front of him, flashing his Negative Vision to switch on his board technopathically and jumping on as it leveled out just over the ground, taking off into the city.

Sure enough, soon he was back in the surly and depressed mood that he'd been in all day, but somehow, now, it seemed like it was easier to bear, like he was stronger now than he had been before. He held on to that feeling as he rode, using the time he had to himself as he zoomed through the city, doing his best to keep out of sight and dodge the various authorities that would arrest him and the people who would want to kill him on sight, to sort through his thoughts and emotions while he practiced for his next race.

* * *

><p>He knew he was a glutton for punishment, because his board had subconsciously taken him to the place where he and Wave had their first unofficial date; the park in between Crisis City and Castle Town.<p>

_Oh sure, Tails, blame all of your problems on your board, _he berated himself.

Well he wanted someone to blame, even if he really had been putting his poor board under too much pressure in the recent months. It had gone through remodel after remodel. If Tails customised it any more, then it would look totally different to the board that he started the Grand Prix with.

His board reverted to a carry on package while he relaxed under one of the trees, watching the sunset over the Royal Court. He closed his eyes for a second, startled when he heard a rustling in the trees, yelping when Arielle dropped from the branches.

"Holy crap!" Tails exclaimed. She'd literally landed right in front of him. She brushed the leaves from her clothes, regarding Tails with a gorgeous smile. He could almost believe she wasn't a monster. Today she was sporting a short black camisole dress with a red ribbon under her bust and thigh high black boots. How could she drop from a tree and still look like a supermodel?

"Hi!"

He was so unnerved by her, but he managed to bend his fingers in a wave and squeak out a quick 'hey' in return. "No offense Arielle, but I am not all that pleased to see you."

"Oh Tails, you do know how to break a girl's heart…" Arielle placed a finger to his lips before saying, "Or should I say chest cavity? Soul? I was never into that spirituality-hippy nonsense."

He stared at her before saying, "What?"

"I mean, I came here to tell you you're officially relieved of all your Cult of Argus babysitters, including me. You're not necessary to 'the cause' anymore, poppet. Isn't that a darn shame?"

"Good," he said, nodding his head. "I never asked for your protection anyway."

"Oh honey, the way you are you could barely make it to second base without stuttering," she smirked at him, her smile widening when he blushed and gaped at her.

"W-wha-? I wasn't talking about-"

"You're adorable," she twittered. "Trust me," she said, blue eyes fluttering flirtatiously, "you're going to wish you had it in the weeks to come. I like you, Fox-trot, even if you don't like me, so I'll give you a word of advice; go visit a fortune teller. And prepare for the worst, something _really_ bad is going to be happening soon. I don't mean 'I can't believe she wore metallic Converses with a pastel shirt' bad- I mean Crimson Night bad."

"Go slower," Tails complained.

"Haha, that's what he said."

"Honestly?" the fox asked, unintentionally smiling at her. She really did act like a teenager. She was really smart too; he could understand why Caleb fell for her. Her laugh was melodic.

"I'm sorry," she grinned, "my head is still stuck in the trends of yester-year, you know?"

He released a breath, and then remembered who he was talking to. Arielle was a mercenary, a trained killer. Why was he laughing with her? Perhaps he saw the best in people too fast…

"Does this mean the Cult of Argus is going to be _targeting _anyone from the Black Arms?"

She pursed the side of her lips and shook her head, "Not particularly." Then her mouth turned down in a frown and her eyes darkened a shade, "Let me guess: you're going to stand by Caleb's side?"

Tails answered seriously, "He's my friend. Of course I have to."

She pressed two fingers to her lips and cocked her hip out to the side as she mulled over something in her head, "You know… I'm not sure you'd be so ready to support him if you knew everything about him."

"Caleb is Caleb. I will not judge him on what he's had to do in the past."

She shook her head. Her expression was sullen and said 'I guess I can't change your mind'. "Listen," she said softly, "Caleb is _Gabriel._ And it isn't what he's done in the past that's supposed to unnerve you."

"What?" he asked her.

She yawned and stretched her arms, "Well, I guess that's enough fraternising with the racers for today."

"Wait! Explain what you said!"

"Take care of yourself, Fox-trot," she said, walking off.

"Hey!"

Tails blinked and she was gone. Like one second she had been swaying her hips down the pathway and then she was _gone._ Vanished. Poof, just like that.

"How the _Hell_ does she do that?" he asked himself, shaking his head and throwing his board down, heading for home.

* * *

><p>"Knuckles!" Tails had been strolling near the Mystic Garden Centre, again with nothing to do. He'd never been this bored before. Hmm. Maybe 'bored' wasn't the right word. He felt a kind of calm before the storm coming on. He had been wondering whether he should invest in some aloe vera, should he go to a fortune teller, and if he should check out the online betting pool in his race, all at once.<p>

"Tails," the echidna had just been exiting the centre; he looked genuinely surprised to see the kit. "How have you been?"

"Oh, you know, jumping from one distaster to the next one."

"I heard that you were involved in the Freedom Fighters and GUN agents mission to infiltrate Eggman's main base."

"Yeah, I was. It was kind of a last minute thing."

"That's what I thought. I mean, I know you've really improved your self-defence, but I can't imagine Sonic readily putting you on the front lines."

"That's because I went without permission. My second mutant power came in really handy then."

"I'd imagine. Listen Tails, technopathy sounds really handy, but how are your tails doing?"

The echidna and the fox automatically looked at the appendages. Whenever Tails thought it would be okay to take of the bandages, he'd feel a mild pain which didn't go away and he'd need to put the bandages on again.

"Fast enough to slow me from a death fall, but not good enough to fly," he answered.

"When did the doctors say it would be okay to see if they were better?"

"Four months from now."

"That's still a long time."

"Why are you asking?"

Knuckles didn't answer for some time, and Tails was left to grab one of his tails and tighten one of the bandages. "I'll give you my honest opinion. It isn't set in stone, but I think something _really_ bad is going to happen."

"You're not the only one that believes that," the mechanic informed him. He'd heard it from Wave, Arielle, and now Knuckles. Maybe it would be a good idea to start figuring out some kind of plan of escape. What were they going to do when the shit finally hit the fan?

"Have you been to the fortune tellers lately?"

He scratched the back of his neck, "Knuckles, you know I'm not into that stuff. But I have an… acquaintance that recommended it."

"The fortune tellers are telling everyone to split. The mutant community is scared as hell; there are a lot of people that are evacuating the city."

"Yes, that was in the news report a few days ago."

"I'm just… getting a really bad vibe about this. I heard from Metal Knuckles that the Tails Doll was captured a few days ago. Most of the Nocturnes are gearing up for a massive battle."

Tails murmured, "Do you know who you'll be fighting against?"

"…The Battle Bird Armada are getting really close."

"I heard a rumour that Eggman's importing some weird new technology that we've never seen before."

"Do you think it could be Babylonian or Black Arms technology?"

"I think Eggman has figured out the difference between the two kinds of mutants."

"Shadow said that as well. He's trying to remember where the Black Arms temples are hidden, but that's a piece of his memory that's still missing."

"We just keep on running into brick walls, don't we?" Tails sighed.

"I'd kill for brick walls," he said. "Brick walls don't hit back."

"I hear you," the fox said, rummaging around his pocket for his phone. "Alright, I better head back before it gets dark. It was nice seeing you again Knuckles. Please tell me you and Sonic can kiss and make up soon, right?"

"That's already ancient history man," Knuckles grinned at him.

"Well then why don't you come back?"

"I don't feel safe in the Black Arms. I'd really like you guys to leave there. Before whatever bogey man comes out to wreck everything."

"I'll keep it in mind."

* * *

><p>Over the last few weeks, the regular stream of people that came to the Black Arms Garage had thinned into a small trickle. He came to memorise anyone that appeared at the door, and Shadow wasn't having much luck with his clients either. Any one that came by were having their gears checked, just in case they needed to get out of the city as fast as possible. The last few weeks had been absolute hell for Tails, but now that the Babylon Rogues were gone and everyone that came in was under the impression they had a death sentence looming over their heads, he wasn't very happy.<p>

He was slightly frightened and relieved to see Espio come in for another Gear check-up. This time, Tails found no strawberry jam inside the Gear compartments. Apart from a leaking tank, there was nothing wrong with the device. Espio wanted no upgrades, but _information._

"I hear that you're in league with one of the Cult of Argus' lieutenants?"

"Well, I know a girl, but I don't particularly know what she's doing. If you want more information on her, it would be a better idea to ask Caleb Heartnet."

"We can't at the moment; he's at the airport sending his sister to Downunda.**(ii)**"

"That's… a smart idea."

"Then, we're right; the person you've had contact with is the late Arielle Truscott."

"Oh," Tails nodded his head, confusion seeing into his voice, "so you guys know she's supposed to be dead as well?"

"We don't need to know all that information; we just need to ask if she told you about the apparent capture of the Tails Doll."

"No she didn't. But I heard about the capture of the Tails Doll through Knuckles."

"Ah," Espio nodded. "The Nocturnes have already been questioned about that as well."

"Well then haven't you got enough POV's?"

"We haven't actually gotten the view of someone that's actually _from _the Cult of Argus."

"Good luck with that."

"Ah, Miles, we're running into so many dead ends."

"I know what that feels like."

The fox rubbed his eyes with his wrist, hoping it would relieve the tiredness. It awakened him a fraction before he reverted back. Gear leaks were the easiest of the easy when it came to Extreme Gear problems, but for some reason he was still having a lot of concentration issues.

"Why did you need to know about the Tails Doll?"

"I'm on a reconnaissance mission trying to understand the threat that the Cult of Argus pose while Soleanna is dealing with other issues, like the strange weaponry that's circulating the Black Market specifically designed for killing mutants, or the looming threat of the Battle Bird Armada."

Tails released a puff of air, "Sounds like a lot of work."

"There's a lot of strain everywhere. The last decoded message we received from Eggman traced back to an old cell phone that was half smashed. Apparently it belonged to Eggman's greatest spy."

"Where was the cell phone found?"

"The Tar Pits."

Tails chuckled, "Everything ends up there."

"Apparently whoever this spy was has gone rogue, we really need to figure out who he or she is and whether we can gain any information by asking them to join our side."

"It sounds like you have your work cut out for you."

"I've got about the same pressure on me as you do. Gotta look good for the cameras tomorrow, right."

Tails sighed, irritated, "Right."

* * *

><p>The motions were, by now, automatic. Get in, find something catastrophically wrong with the track, get through it, win the race, and get out. He was still in a black mood. He wasn't in the right mind to entertain the reporters with a charming smile and a cute laugh. He weaved through them and pushed past them like hindrances in an obstacle course.<p>

_I wish Wave was here._

She always calmed him before a big race, but without her here, he was the only one to take care of the nerves he was trying to ignore. His board was in immaculate condition. He's spent far too much time yesterday making sure absolutely _everything_ was perfect.

_Because something is bound to do wrong, no matter how good I perform._

Predator Hawk regarded him with a glare. Or was that just how he always looked? Tails shrugged it off. He held no grudge against the blue bird, but he knew Predator had some kind of loathing towards him, so he couldn't let his guard down.

He was shifting through the motions as if they'd always been a part of him.

As he ascended the elevator, Gear in hand, he covered his eyes, watching as thousands cheered him on. Thousands cursed his existence, and booed at him as well. He'd become so used to the hatred. He would ignore it. He didn't need their approval. He was going to win this race, no matter what.

No matter how bad things became, he'd charge headlong into the challenge.

He wasn't going to run anymore. He was sick of fleeing. Sick of looking like a coward.

He was going to save this city.

Or die trying.

* * *

><p><strong>notes<strong>

**(i) **The couch prank is the initiation into the Black Arms family. Caleb's was in Ch 40.

**(ii) **Caleb demanded Mytho use his scholarship money to send Lottie, his little sister, to Downunda instead of using it for Caleb's college education.

* * *

><p><strong>a|n<strong>

Don't forget to review. There might be a bit of a pause while I wait on a certain writing piece which is necessary to continue forward. But don't worry; there is only one major event before things start getting really serious.


	64. The Holocaust Begins

**a|n**

Thanks to **HalfWright**, **hateyuforever**, **Heartless demon wolf**, **Exploder**, **ADrunkPigeon**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Numbuh 006**, **DJHunter**, **Ricky **and **Guest **for reviewing the last chapter.

The music has been carefully tailored to sound exactly like the scene. So if you haven't listened to the music up until this point, I beg you to do it now. Just for this chapter. Seriously, open YouTube and type in the songs really quickly. It'll make the experience so much better.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p>"<em>There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented. The common man, I think, is the great protection against war." –Ernest Bevin<br>_…  
><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>

_Chapter Sixty Four  
>.<em>  
>"Before you know it, there's rubble and dust, 'cause we be crashing it up, somebody say, "You better run"."<p>

_Escaping The CIA _of Salt Soundtrack

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>Welcome again folks, to the racing event of the summer! Here we have the nefarious Predator Hawk versus Soleanna's very own underdog- or should I say fox? Ladies and gentlemen this is Fox-trot!"<strong>_

Wave slammed her foot into the wall with the reverberating force of an earthquake. Her chest heaved as she watched the faulty paster of the wall shake, quiver and fall, altering both her brothers to the destruction she was inflicting. Pieces of plaster fell to the floor, coming up in a cloud of powder making them choke.

"Wave! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Jet cried, ducking around the falling debris and stopping her from inflicting another punch on the poor wall. The hawk was _just_ barely strong enough to stop her from creating more holes in the wall. It didn't matter. The structure was shaky and he knew it was going to collapse on them any second now.

"I need to _destroy_ something!" she snapped at him, looking around for something else she could she-hulk into non-existence. Her bright blue eyes were filled with flames. She felt so frustrated and weak. She was angry with herself and with the world because she couldn't do anything to protect the ones she loved. She had to sacrifice her friends for her family, and she didn't regret the decision, but she selfishly wished there could have been an alternative to save them both.

"Woah, what's wrong?" Storm asked her, stepping in front of Jet and grabbing her wrist. The hawk sighed in relief, glad that someone who could subdue Wave had stepped in. Wave and Jet were always almost even in fights. He'd won more of them, but that's only because he had more stamina.

"Look at this," she said begrudgingly, bringing up the holographics from her necklace's database and bringing up a map indicating the location of the Battle Bird Armada. Her hand came up to press her finger into a location on the map, and a sign came up spelling 'Egg Dome'. The fleet was just starting to invade Soleanna's air space. The thought brought chills up her spine, and attacked her nerves by suffocating her with a dreaded sense of foreboding.

"Look how close they are," Storm said, bringing up one of his massive hands to point at the fleet. She rolled her eyes. Weren't they supposed to be comforting her? Sometimes she hated how _dim_ they seemed to be. She knew both of them had a reasonable amount of brain capacity, but they just decided they didn't want to use it.

"_Boys,"_ she muttered in contempt before slamming her hand on one of the dilapidating desks. She was taking advantage of absolutely every available breakable object. There were a lot. They were taking shelter in the almost abandoned Black Hill district. They'd stopped in a half incinerated house to watch Tails' race.

"Can you stop that?" Jet crowed irritatingly, swatting her hands like one would a naughty child, "You're gonna wake up Grandpa."

"Fine!" she huffed, releasing a shaky breath and crossing her arms over her chest. Right after she did so, the wall that she'd first kicked in completely caved in slammed to the ground. The bird released an 'ooh' of curiosity when they noticed that this room was full of different kinds of empty alcohol bottles. She immediately thought of a certain ginger-haired medic. **(i)**

"Haha," Jet laughed, his blue eyes filled with merriment. "If I didn't know any better, I'd assume Welshscot used to live here."

"I haven't seen him in ages," Storm muttered, rubbing at one of his eyes.

"They're coming too close to the Egg Dome," Wave said, turning their attention back to the holographic map, "Do you think they're planning an assault?"

"I don't know," the grey bird said, shrugging his shoulders, "I thought they were too preoccupied by all of the Black Arms temples surrounding Soleanna to launch an attack." That was actually a good point… wait, _what?_

"Could be," Jet nodded, agreeing with him.

"What Black Temples?"**(ii)** Wave demanded, irritated knowing that a piece of information had slipped through her fingers. She'd been feeling that for a while now, like there was some important fact hanging about in the air and she just couldn't grasp it. That was one of the reasons she had been feeling so tense lately.

"Oh yeah, we were speaking to Shadow while you and Tails were talking," Jet informed her, turning down the edge of her mouth down in a frown. "He said that there are five Black Arms temples surrounding Soleanna in a pentagon. The last time they were activated was during the Black Advent, the day of the Crimson Night. There's a rumour running around that the one that activated them was the Fallen Angel."

She was suddenly filled with curiosity, "What do they do?"

"They create a barrier, like a dome, around the entire city. No one, not even if you're a Black Arms mutant, can escape."

"Fuck, that sounds scary," Wave said, shivering. "Isn't anyone afraid that Eggman is doing this again? Think about it, if he harnessed this power then doesn't that mean he could be planning another…"

…_Massacre?_

"We doubt he has the resources to." Jet answered her, shrugging, but she could read the doubt in his voice. "Everyone believes the Fallen Angel died, and besides, there's a rumour that you need chaos emeralds to power them. There are seven of them."

"Tails has one," Wave informed them.

"And Mystic Ruins claims they know where two are."

"I hope Eggman doesn't have those chaos emeralds…" she muttered, turning back to the television.

"_**Today, our competitors are going to be participating in the race for glory on the track MeteoTech Sparkworks."**_

"Wow, look at the track! It looks a lot like the inside of the Eggman base!" Storm announced.

_Why would he do that? Is there a specific reason as to why he would make the track so alike?_ Wave wondered, placing her chin in her hand.

The spy drones flew around the competitors, and she watched in fascination as Tails pulled at the edge of his fingerless gloves to reveal his Ark of the Cosmos, plus the bracelet she'd made for him before she disappeared. He raised his wrist to his lips and brushed them against the metal briefly. She flushed red, looking at the floor and gulping quietly. She supposed it had something to do with luck- like in casino's gambler would get pretty girls to blow on their dice for a better chance.

"Good luck, Tails."

"_This is for you,"_ he said, unaware that he'd been recorded by one of the spy drones.

Wave stared at Tails. It was kind of hard to see properly through the holographic quality of Jet's phone, but it was rare of him to be so… serious, so dark and… alluring. She squirmed in her seat on the floor as she watched him. He looked so much older than he was, it was… kind of hot.

She flushed, fanning herself with her hands as a particularly embarrassing memory swam up from her consciousness.

"_Dammit, Wave, __why did you make me __**fall in love**__ with you?__"_**(iii)**

She didn't think she'd ever seen _this _side of the fox before. The last time had to be… when they were looking for the location of the Babylon Key. She'd never seen Tails look so confident, like a real leader. Plus his technopathy had to be the nerdiest turn on ever.

_Babylon Key…_ she mused quietly, watching as Tails started running for the starting line.

"_We can't possibly get the Key today," Tails shrugged. "We can only take comfort in the fact that Eggman hasn't found it yet, but we should wait until he have a solid plan now that we know its location. You should mark the location in your maps for now." _**(iv)**

_I put the location of the Babylon Key on my GPS, programmed into my board…_ Wave thought. Suddenly, she started hyperventilating; the truth felt like it had literally slammed into her face.

"Wave! What's wrong?"

"Eggman-" she gasped. "Eggman has my board! I lost it at the raid, and Eggman probably has it!"

"So?" Storm asked.

"Jet, Storm, I had the coordinates for the _Babylon Key_ inside that board, remember?!"

Two sets of eyes widened, staring at each other and then the distraught swallow before them. Somewhere far away, Fate started laughing at them.

* * *

><p><em>Despair <em>from Batman: The Dark Night Rises Soundtrack

* * *

><p>"Okay, so you have to <em>promise<em> me you're not going to tell the others until you think they're ready, alright?"

"I don't know Caleb," Cream murmured, biting her lip. She looked at him, bright brown eyes worried for him. "I mean, I can see why you came to me. If you'd gone to Shadow or Knuckles, they would have violently fought you… but… How am I…?"

"You don't have to tell them," he assured her as he walked around the street of Black Arms Garage. "I just desperately needed to tell someone. You have the feeling too, right? Something bad is going to happen. It's instinctual."

"Do you worry about your father?" the rabbit asked him, watching as he paced back and forth.

"I worry about what he's _doing_. I don't necessarily worry for him. If I had the chance I'd dig his eyeballs out with a spoon before tossing him in a hole to rot."

"If I was in your position… and if I was a little bit stronger, I would have done the same. I can understand your viewpoint," Cream nodded her head, getting up to place a hand on Caleb's shoulder.

"Thanks," his eyes softened as he placed a hand on Cream's head. "It really means a lot to me. I worry that he's going to do something to harm you guys, you're in the direct line of fire now." He patted his pockets, "Dammit, where's my phone?"

"That is a possibility, but Amy stubbornly refuses to move. My mom and I are offering shelter, but it's hard to get anyone but Amy and Tails at the Black Arms anymore. At the moment, only Amy, Blaze and my mom are inside watching the race."

"They're really going to hate me when they find out, are they?" Caleb murmured, hanging his head.

"For a little bit, but then they're going to realise it wasn't your fault. You shouldn't be blamed for your father's actions. And those that were your actions have a reason behind them. You've never been pointlessly cruel."

"I guess. But it doesn't stop me from hating myself."

"There's a reasonable amount of loathing towards you, I'll tell you that," Cream said. She opened her mouth to say something else caught her attention. The sky was being _filled_ with fighter jets and a _huge _fleet of flying war machines. "Oh my god…"

"What the-?"

One of the jets was flying right over the Black Arms, dropping something…

"Holy _fuck!_ Cream! Start running now!"

"What? What's happenin-?"

"_FUCKING RUN!"_ he demanded, grabbing her wrist and sprinting, but it was already too late. They were blown forwards by the shattering impact of the bomb, smashing violently into Leilani's apartment building.

They turned back watching as the Black Arms was blown to pieces.

"_MOM!"_ Creamed screamed, getting up to run to the Black Arms when there was another bomb dropped right on top of the building.

"Oh gods. I knew something bad was going to happen," Caleb said, getting up and sprinting towards the bombing site. "Fucking hell…"

"C'mon," Cream said, fighting back tears, "we have to see if they're still alive."

As they made their way back they looked up briefly as the sky turned red. Or rather, a large red dome knitted itself against the blue sky, encasing the entire city within its grasp.

"I have a _really_ bad feeling about this…"

* * *

><p><em>Choose <em>of the Jak X: Combat Racing Soundtrack

* * *

><p>The race had started, but Tails was getting a foreboding chill. Something bad was going to happen. He was used to it- God knew he was <em>so<em> used to it by now, but his animal instincts were telling him he should be running as far away from the Egg Dome as possible. He was so busy trying to quell his instincts that it was too late to retaliate when Predator Hawk slammed him into the wall.

"God dammit-!" he swore as he tried to push Predator Hawk off him. The hawk was strong though and continued to slam him so hard into the wall that his board was sparking at the sides. He thought of the only thing that would get him out of this situation.

"Gravity control!"

His board rose up and flung him ten meters forward instantly, placing him in front of the nefarious bird.

"Drat…" he heard him swear as Tails hit the turbo boosters right before a jump. This one landed him in the accelerator rings, and Tails was thrust forward, placing a huge gap between him and Predator Hawk.

Things were going smoothly. His board was in top working condition, no one had tried to hack it and screw it up. There were no extra surprises on the track… Something was _definitely _going to happen.

Tails passed the starting line to begin the second lap. Suddenly there was a deafening bout of noise everyone assumed was coming from the Commentator's Booth. Tails blocked his ears and swerved, trying to get around the next corner. The right turn this time forced Tails to use gravity control to get around the corner. He brought a huge amount of machinery with him by accident, wires breaking from monitors as the force of the gravity pulled them away from the wall, and threw them at the door to the next segment of the race, completely smashing the barrier apart.

"_**Everyone!" **_Omochao said, in a tone that didn't exactly scream 'commentator'. _**"The Solean Defence Minister has an urgent message!"**_

Tails was tempted to stop, but Predator Hawk was right behind him, so he continued to breeze his way through the course as another voice came over the announcement system.

"Attention citizens. The Battle Bird Armada, led by the Fifteenth Battle Kuku, has launched a full frontal attack. Our military has been sabotaged by Armada spies. Please evacuate the Egg Dome and move into the emergency shelters located in the Solean Forest."

The fox halted. He _knew_ something bad was going to happen, but not on this _scale_. He looked around the track for the nearest exit when suddenly a deafening siren went off. Tails' eyes widened as an earth shattering crack reverberated through the entire Egg Dome.

He watched in horror as a section of the ceiling gave way, and an enemy fighter jet crashed through, spilling light into the artificial tracks. A mass of screaming erupted from the crowd as thousands were crushed under the jet's weight and there were bangs, as the birds inside the jet poured out and started shooting anyone they could see.

_Why are they harming civilians?_ Tails thought as the plane slowly started sinking into the middle of the Egg Dome, towards the abyss underneath the tracks. One of the railings for the metal benches on the side broke, and a little girl slipped forward until she was at the edge of the tracks.

_Oh no, if she lets go then she's going to die._

Tails hit the turbo boost on his gear and hopped onto the rail, as if it was a grinding rail featured in the races. He sped along the metal and hopped off, grabbing onto the next row of seats as he reached for the little girl's hand. Not even her parents dared to get this close.

"Grab my hand!"

"I can't!" she screamed back. "I'm scared!"

Tails thought about it a second before deciding to use gravity control. He used the power of the Ark of the Cosmos to lift the little girl and land her in the arms of her father, who was among other people trying to escape the Egg Dome. The fox felt sick to his stomach as he noticed the members of the Battle Bird Armada shoot down civilians.

Tails turned on his Negative Vision as the soldiers took to the air, hovering over the group of civilians that he'd landed among. Reaching out his hand, he used Negative Vision to disable all of their guns. They were using Babylonian Technology similar to the gun he had been shocked with. He was glad that he had examined that more closely, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to disable their weapons.

"It's that one! The fox! He's a mutant! He probably stopped out guns from working!"

Tails dived into the crowd, slithering through everyone to reach the exit and break free from his pursuers. As soon as he was outside of the Egg Dome, he took a moment to stare at the sky in absolute horror. The sky was red.

_Just like the Crimson Night._**(v)**

He heard sirens go off as members of the Egg battalions started to fight against their common enemy. Never had Tails been so glad to see those stupid robots. Without thinking he immediately set off to go to the Black Arms Garage, praying that everyone was safe.

Tails was thirty blocks away from the Black Arms when he saw the explosion that tore his home to pieces.

_FUCK! I'm not going to make it in time._

Praying to any deity that would listen he hit the thrusters and made his way home.

* * *

><p><em>Secrets<em> of The Amazing Spider Man Soundtrack

* * *

><p>When he arrived Silver was just dragging Vanilla out of the flames, she looked unscathed, but she also looked unconscious. Amy was lying by a pile of rubble, a huge pool of blood underneath her. Caleb was leaning over her body, but he wasn't doing anything. That sparked a worry in Tails he hadn't felt since the Crimson Night.<p>

"Oh god, is she alright?" Tails asked, hopping off his board and skidding to a stop next to Caleb. Somewhere in the background, Cream started wailing, collapsing herself over her mother. Fuck…

Caleb, who didn't look up shook his head. "Her ribcage collapsed."

And then it hit Tails…

Amy was dead.

His _sister_ was _**dead!**_

Tears started welling up in his eyes as he collapsed to his knees, checking Amy's pulse. She looked _fine_ save for all of the blood around her. He was sobbing by the time that he raised his head, throwing his wrists in front of his eyes to wipe away the tears.

_Someone was going to __**PAY!**_

"Amy…" he sobbed, shaking his head. "No, no, no."

It was hard to hear him over the sirens and the constant explosions. The world was falling apart, but he couldn't hear anything but his own devastation. He looked around. Cream's mother was lying unconscious on the ground, Cream was sobbing over her body. _Not Vanilla too._

Somewhere in the background, Silver was panicking and Caleb was looking around the rubble for his phone. Tails got up and started looking around the rubble as well.

"We've got to find Blaze," Silver said. "She might still be under this stuff."

Tails looked around, scrounging anything that was left behind. He didn't want to, but he needed to look for anything he could salvage, whether it was working Extreme Gear or Shadow's emergency weapons. He picked up a piece of paper, he recognised it from a long time ago. He could still read the message.

_Though your battle begins and ends with hatred, never lose what's truly important. Wisp is where you'll be tested; alongside wind, water and flame. Know that I will battle for you and if the arms turn white, you will survive in Radical City._

_In tua custodiam,_

_DA_ **(vi)**

He looked at Silver as he picked up a phone. He flipped it open and pressed a button.

"_Greetings…"_ said the phone.

Tails snapped his neck to look at the item. Silver's eyes were on full alert as well. Instinctually, Tails turned back to Caleb, who was trying to comfort Cream while at the same time, inform Shadow of what had happened, as he had just arrived on the scene.

Tails recognised that voice anywhere.

It was Eggman.

Silver ran over to Caleb, Cream and Shadow, his hand shaking as he raised the phone.

"_You might have been my best asset __**Heartnet**__, but it turns out I don't even __**need**__ your services anymore. This is what you get for betraying the Eggman Empire. Here's a bomb, courtesy of your father. Enjoy whatever time you have left you petulant little fool."_

"Caleb, where's your phone?"

Tails gasped in horror as the fox looked at Silver's hand guiltily, before he was filled with absolute rage. "_YOU'RE _THE TRAITOR!" he cried, pointing to Caleb accusingly.

Now that the fox had said it, it made sense. Caleb was there for absolutely all of the arguments in the Black Garage.**(vii)** He had access to GUN information. GUN thought that Caleb was working to _weedle out_ the spy but CALEB was the spy himself! Plus all of his stupid contacts. Half of them were probably related to Eggman himself. How had Caleb got all of that information about Eggman's secret base? Because he's _already_ been there!

"We blamed _Blaze_ for placing the listening device on her board, but it was all your fault!" **(viii)** Silver snarled at the fox who was slowly backing away.

"Wait!" Caleb said, his eyes going wide when he saw the murderous intent in Shadow, Silver and Tails' eyes. "I can-"

"No you _cannot_ fucking explain!" Silver snapped at him. "Do you see Blaze's emotions? Do you see Amy's? Vanilla's? _NO? _IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE _DEAD!" _the hedgehog roared at him. "It's your fault! You came here acting like a fucking dick, but we _trusted_ you! We babysat your sister, we protected you from the authorities, we haven't thrown you in to your bloody father and we find out you're _just_ as bad as him! Willing to sell out your soul to serve Eggman! And for _what?!_"

"Now they're dead," Tails said, looking at Caleb with so much disappointment. "I hope you're happy, because of you, three innocent people died."

"No…" Caleb said, shaking his head, he looked like he was truly lost, but Tails felt no sympathy for him. "I didn't know Eggman would do this… I didn't know my father would help."

"You put them in danger and _now their dead!_" Tails snarled at him, stepping forward. "We should kill you for what you've done! I still can't believe that you worked for EGGMAN! Helped you_ father's _ally. He's the reason your _mother's_ dead?! Or did you lie about that too?"

"I didn't!" he said, before recoiling once again. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't know… I-"

"Sorry isn't bringing them back," Shadow muttered darkly.

Silver brought up his hand and started using telekinesis to strangle the frightened traitor. Caleb grasped at his throat as if that would help before using his empathy to inflict pain on Silver. Silver lost control of his telekinesis and when he looked up again, Caleb was gone. Tails' board was missing.

"We need to find Blaze," he told the both of them when suddenly they were attacked from behind, explosions going off and tearing apart whatever remained of the Black Arms.

* * *

><p><em>Muttations<em> of The Hunger Games Soundtrack

* * *

><p>They looked around, and Shadow gasped. There was a robot there. It looked about the size of the Egg Giants. It was decked out in red, black and gold armour, with the sign for 'Omega' on his shoulders.<p>

"**Mobian heat signature acquired. Facial identification: Miles Prower. Orders: Annihilate! Annihilate!"**

Four rockets followed the order and Tails dodged to the side before they actually hit him. The robot surged forward, jet packs alight as he rammed his fist into the rubble behind Tails' back. Like he had when he was a kit, he jumped onto the robot's head and hopped onto the other side.

"**Kill! Kill! Annihilate! Annihilate!"**

"Omega!" Shadow yelled, trying to get the robot's attention.

The robot didn't heed Shadow's calls and continued to attack Tails, swinging his massive arms just fast enough to catch and scrape Tails' fur.

"E-123 Omega!" the hedgehog roared, this time catching the robot's attention.

"**Facial identification: Shadow the hedgehog. Possible fallen seraph. Possible test subject: Project Shadow. Orders: Annihilate! Annihilate!"**

Shadow goaded the robot's attention. He had obviously been sent by Eggman, because Tails wasn't able to disable the robot's kinetics.

"Run Tails! Run! We'll take care of things here!"

_But where to? I'd be dead by the time that I reached the forest._

Then he looked down at the note in his hands.

_Though your battle begins and ends with hatred, never lose what's truly important. Wisp is where you'll be tested; alongside wind, water and flame. Know that I will battle for you and if the arms turn white, you will survive in Radical City._

_In tua custodiam,_

_DA_

"And if the arms turned white…"

_Arms… Black Arms?_

_White means the absence of colour. Caleb once told me that the absence of colour means __**death.**__ Could whoever have sent this note to me, known what was going to happen? _

"You will survive in Radical City."

_Radical City Racetrack District would be the perfect place to go. No one goes there because that's where Tails Doll lives. _

And so that's where his next destination was. He set his sights on that district and ran, and ran, and ran.

**End of Part I**

* * *

><p><strong>notes<strong>

**(i) **In Ch 9 it was revealed that _The Iron Domain Queen _sent orders to blow up Welshscot's old home in the **Black Hill District**. _The Babylon Rogues_ are using the remains of his home while they go into hiding.

**(ii)** The **Black Temples **are featured in a level of Shadow the Hedgehog. The title is called **Glyphic Canyon** and Shadow must activate all of the temple jewels in order to fulfil the 'evil' side of his destiny, working for _Black Doom_.

**(iii) **This is a quote from Tails in Ch 51.

**(iv)** This had to be almost the entirety of Ch 54. Tails was so incredibly badass in that chapter.

**(v) **During the The Black Advent, the temples around Soleanna were used to create a dome around the entire city, that no one could escape from. Eggman has employed the same technology to box in _The Battle Bird Armada_ and thousands of citizens.

**(iv)** In Ch 5 it is revealed that _Tails Doll_ left Tails this note.

**(vii) **Caleb was present for the argument between Sonic and Knuckles in Ch 46, he was there with the argument between Tails and Wave in Ch 47, he was there between the fight with Silver and Blaze _and _the one between Shadow, Rouge, Amy and Sonic in Ch 49, as well as the second fight between Sonic and Knuckles in Ch 51, also, the fight between Tails and Amy in Ch 52.

**(viii)** Blaze was accused of being the spy in Ch 49.

* * *

><p><strong>a|n<strong>

The reviews are all going to be death threats, are they? Oh well. Have at thee. Your interpretations are always entertaining. Also, if anyone's interested in doing some cover art for the story, you're always welcomed to. Can't wait to read your reviews guys.

Stay excellent!


	65. Limbo Arc: Siren's Sin

**author's note.**

Thanks to **Numbuh 006**, **DJHunter**, **Heartless demon wolf**, **Yuke Navy Pilot**, **ADrunkPigeon**, **The Loner in the Shadows**, **Ricky**, **DaddlerTheDalek**, **Exploder**, **HalfWright**, **slicerness**, **hateyuforever**, **Talons310**, **Guest** & **Blood** Brandy for reviewing the last chapters.

**Talons310~ **Thanks. Dramatic and dark seems to be my style at the moment, either that or bitchy and sarcastic. It's a differing viewpoint. I do hope to get one thousand reviews. That would be a dream come true for me. It was unexpected, but it has been planned since the very beginning of this story. Thanks for reviewing. :)

**Guest~** And haha, guys, if you're going to ask me a question that requires an answer, please don't ask me on anon. It doesn't make sense.

To mix it up a little, this chapter is written entirely in a perspective I've never done before. If you're not interested in Arielle Truscott, I suggest that you skip this chapter, and wait for the next one, which will be written in an official character's perspective.

Holy Hell, it's been a while hasn't it? I actually bought Sonic 06, just to see how bad it is, and I gave up after the first level, but at least I have a clear idea of what Soleanna looks like now.

background music: _High Hopes in Velvet Ropes _by The Cab & _Zombie_ by The Pretty Reckless.

**enjoi.**

* * *

><p><strong>Anthem of Our Dying Day<strong>

_'Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.'_ ~Saint Augustine

**Limbo Arc**

Chapter Sixty-Five: _Siren's Sin_

"You called, Dark Master?"

She'd admit; the ambiance in this room was pretty dreary. She'd always considered gypsy-like fortune tellers to be a little brighter, with rich drapes sequined with bright golden stars and lamps that glowed, but, she didn't have the most educated vision of fortune tellers ever. Being raised with military lineage would do that to a person.

She didn't know why she bothered adjusting her clothes; the Dark Master hadn't brought her back to life to look pretty. He said she'd been raised because of her abilities, and because her appearance would shake apart the very foundation of GUN officials all over Soleanna. She didn't really care; all she wanted to do was play with her little fox a bit more. She fixed her posture, placing a hand on her hip and cocking it out to the side. The Dark Master rarely spent any time looking at her anyway.

Before her, he placed one card down. She recognised it as a tarot card and felt an immediate sense of unease. Leilani had been into tarot. She could recognise some of the cards. This one: the devil. Upside down.

_Evil. Abuse of authority. Uncontrolled ambition._

"Tails Doll was successfully captured a while ago. Eggman is driving all the mutants to hatred and insanity. It's been some time since we started campaign to destroy all non-mutants."

"That's all well and good, Sir, but what do you want me to do about it?"

"If you hadn't heard, we've recruited the talents of Silver, a hedgehog who is friends with Miles Prower. I assume you've seen him already?"

"Here and there," she answered, examining her nails. "But this is old news."

He placed another card down, his fingers curling around the cardboard like spindly bones.

The card read 'death', upside down as well.

_Unwanted change. Refusal to accept change. Mental exhaustion._

"He is under the impression that his dear one, The Violet Lady, is dead. Unfortunately, this isn't _exactly _true. Silver doesn't know this, but your lover does. He ran into some former Violet Guards a few months ago who are keeping her alive and now knows the truth."

"Caleb?!" Arielle twittered excitedly, hopping up and down. "Do I get to see him again, Master?"

"Yes," the Dark Master chuckled, waving a decrepit hand about in an authorative gesture.

"Young Silver is stricken and furious about The Violet Lady's death. Because he plans to avenger her, he has joined our side. He is one of the best fighters we have, however foolish and gullible he is. You need to keep Heartnet from reaching him and telling him the truth. To keep him at bay, I want you to send him into the Gladiator Games. I have a feeling he will be a hindrance otherwise."

"But master, the Gladiator Games haven't started yet," she ermine said.

"They will soon, Child. I have heard from our spies that the Rodent King has permission from Eggman to begin them soon. They have been rounding up the players; some will survive longer than others. I'm sure if you dropped him into the games he would survive for a lengthy amount of time before you could pull him out again."

Arielle ran a hand through her long, white hair, "Is that all, Master?"

He placed down a final card: The Lovers. Also upside down.

_Deception. Indecisiveness. Disharmony._

"No," he said, gesturing her to stop her leave. "GUN has been using their former headquarters to shelter mutants and civilians alike. I'm going to need you to destroy it for me, Arielle. Destroy it and steal the chaos emerald I know they're hiding there. They've recently acquired it from the remnants of the echidna tribes and we have to remove all hope the mutants have so that they will join our cause. Understood?"

"Yes, Dark Master!" she performed a habitual salute, grinning from ear to ear as she skipped out of the room. "And thanks for the reading."

"Anytime, Dear."

She pressed her lips to one of the worn hemp bracelets hanging around her wrist, "I'm coming for you, Darling."

* * *

><p>She was dressed in her bounty-hunter garb; a tight blue t-shirt, a cropped black jacket, matching black pants tucked into commando boots. "It's such an irritation that this mission doesn't call for more fashionable clothes," Arielle complained, as she laced up her boots.<p>

"Oh stop complaining," Honey replied, tossing her two sub-machine guns.

"Ah my favourites," she said, kissing the barrel of one of the Magpul FMG-9s. "What's your next mission?"

"I haven't got one," the yellow cat complained, pulling on a pair of gloves. "Marsali's just put me in charge of babysitting the Tails Doll."

"Oh boo hoo," Arielle teased, poking out her tongue.

"Shut up," Honey grinned. They were in the Church of Argus' hidden armoury, and Arielle was getting geared up for her mission. She skimmed her hands over three different pistol swords.

"These are nice," she smirked, taking one of them down and examining it. "I thought they stopped making them."

"Why use swords when you can simply shoot someone?" Honey asked her.

"I've always been better at close combat," she grinned. "This one says it's a flintlock sword revolver. Looks fancy."

"Stop messing around and choose your weapon. I can see why you're using swords I guess, ever since you were raised, the ability to move faster than bullets comes in handy, huh?"

"Only enough to block them," Arielle murmured, putting the pistols back and grabbing two twin swords, both with the name _Tsurugi_ on the sides. "I like these! There are charms on the ends. I'm glad people still make these, it would be a shame if people stopped using swords."

"You're insane," Honey told her before pulling her out of the armoury and closing the door.

They passed by the priest with a brief 'Sup, Chip?' when she realised there was something distinctly different about the church. She looked around, examining all the patrons plus the survivors of the nearby skirmishes. She scratched her hairline, trying to figure out what was wrong.

"What's up?" Honey asked her, trying to follow her line of sight.

"There used to be a little altar boy around. He was around three or four, brown hair, grey eyes… Don't you remember him?" she asked the yellow cat, receiving a shake of the head for her troubles. "It's just a little weird. He'd always use these tripwire cherry bombs on me, but he's not here anymore."

The cat rolled her eyes and pushed the ermine out the door. Those women and men who had joined the Dark Master's 'resistance' were fighting to keep mutants alive and gun down everyone else. The women and children who had remained were scavenging the ruins of buildings for food and supplies. As it had been for the last few weeks, the sky was filled with fighter jets, smoke, fire and explosions, while a backdrop of intransigent red magic kept them all boxed inside. It truly was a warzone out there, with little to no shelter scattered few and far between.

"First thing's first," Arielle smirked as she hopped onto her motorcycle, "I'm going to visit my darling."

"See you later!" Honey waved as the mercenary revved up her engine and took off with blinding speed.

* * *

><p>She'd gotten intel from Argus' still working scouts that a white fox had been sighted moving in and out of a building that Shadow and Rouge also frequented. She'd guessed that that had been the GUN secret base. She'd set some scouts to monitor the building, and sure enough, there were sightings of civilians not-so-sneakily going inside as well.<p>

The wonderful thing about GUN agents was that they weren't exactly trained to be creative, and so most thought in the same process as everyone else. Sneaking in was going to be a piece of cake.

The outside of the GUN headquarters was decorated like a homely old apartment building, covered in red bricks and ivy, but it looked abandoned, as was most of the homes in Soleanna. The smart people had immediately gone down to the Black Market for underground shelter, if they hadn't been able to reach the emergency bunkers in Soleanna's forest.

Arielle parked her bike on the other side of the street, in a blind spot from the cameras she could see swivelling under the ivy. She ran a hand over her eyes, smoothing out her fringe and wondering about a plan of attack. Dark Master had said nothing about how delicately she needed to handle this mission. All he said was 'destroy it' meaning, she could do it with any amount of _bang_ she wanted.

She looked at the machine guns strapped to her sides and shrugged.

She ran up to the building and took out the two cameras hidden behind the ivy by scaling the wall and cutting up some wires with an army knife. After that she slipped into one of the open windows soundlessly.

She didn't particularly pay any attention to whether she was being stealthy or not. She only had to mind whether a GUN agent saw her, because they would surely recognise her, after all, the disappearance of Mytho Truscott's little sister and his best friend had been a base-wide distress. There weren't many that knew that she died as well… and in a way, Caleb did too. She stretched languidly, inspecting the seemingly innocent hallway she'd landed in. Everything looked as it would have, should this be a normal apartment building.

She looked in every room, finding no one inside save for a few abandoned… shells? She picked up one of the bullet sized pieces and decided to inspect the rooms more closely. _Do the GUN agents get ready for battle in these rooms?_ She went downstairs and took out two more cameras. She could hear a buzzing noise that was getting increasingly more annoying as she wondered what it was.

Suddenly, she heard a commotion from outside and decided to peek out a window, readying her firearms. There was a small girl carrying a handful of supplies. She opened the door to a _basement_ situated outside.

_Well, I see no other way to get inside_.

She jumped out the window and crashed into the door, utterly destroying it in the process. The little girl was gone, but it wasn't like that would have affected how she went about destroying someone else's property. She found another door that looked more like the entrance to a meat locker. She rolled her eyes.

_I'm giving up on subtlety. _

She brought out her firearm and blasted the hinges for the door. When that didn't work, she kicked them apart, making the door fall down with a dramatic slam. Inside it looked a lot more high-tech, but it wouldn't stop them from her blasting the place apart. She was greeted by three GUN agents and a bunch of frightened civilians. She scanned the crowd, but she still couldn't see Caleb.

She walked forward, and the GUN agents cocked their firearms; a rifle, two pistols and an SMG. The corner of her mouth twisted up in a smirk. She took three gracefully slow steps forward, watching as the agents started shivering in fear.

The one holding the pistols put his firearm down, but she could see his hands were still shaking, "Is it really _you,_ Arielle?"

"Who's really anyone anymore?" she asked cryptically, crossing her arms, along with her SMGs, across her chest. "I can make this really easy for you: one, I can give you time to evacuate this building before I steal the chaos emeralds and blow it up- all you have to do is give me Heartnet, _or _you can hide him and perish. C'mon, time's ticking," she laughed, placing her wrists on her hips.

One of the GUN agents fired, but superhuman abilities granted Arielle the time to unsheathe her swords and use them to deflect the bullet. It ricocheted off the blade and back at the agent, who was shot somewhere in the abdomen. They were sent to the floor, blood pooling underneath them.

She pursed her lips and sheathed the blade, knowing that she'd made her point: anyone that tried to hurt her would die. The ermine moved from one foot to the other as the two remaining GUN agents thought about their options.

"Tick, tock~" she sung before turning around and inspecting the surrounding room. The place looked like it had been made out of chrome. The lights were too bright. She turned back to the two agents. One of them saw that she was looking at them and the other hid a cell phone from her sight. She scowled at them. She thought that all the cell reception had died because the phone companies weren't working anymore. "Are you going to reveal him?"

"He's not here!" one of them yelled at her. The other tried to place their phone into the back pocket. Her eyes widened.

"You're _stalling_."

"We're not, honest!" the one who had first spoken said. She narrowed her eyes. She was a _sound_ elemental. She knew the truth from a lie. Sure, Caleb probably wasn't here, but there was something else straining their voice. They… they'd probably called for backup. She placed her hand on her hip, the other ghosting down her body until she revealed two bombs that had been strapped into the inside of her jacket.

"I made these bombs with the help of a fire elemental mutant. They're stronger than any bombs Gun has ever manufactured. I'm giving you thirty seconds to tell me where-"

"I'm _here_ Arielle," she spied Caleb swivelling between the crowd of frightened mutants. He could have very well been hiding in the crowd the entire time; she didn't recognise him with white fur.

_Of course he has white fur. There isn't exactly any time to buy fur dye with all of the chaos about._

"Callie!" she yelped excitedly, dancing over to him and throwing her arms around him in a hug. Arielle hadn't aged, so it was kind of surreal to be hugging a now eighteen year old fox. The ermine had died when she was nineteen. Caleb was taller than her now, thicker and more muscly as well, even if still a little skinny. She heard him gasp as he embraced him then stiffen all his muscles as if freezing would erase him from her sight. She let him go and looked down at his wrists. He was still wearing her bracelet. Caleb noticed this and clenched his fists, narrowing his angry blue eyes at her. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" she purred.

"A year," he clarified. To think it had been over a year since she last saw him, since Eggman had brought the tools together to make the red sky. She revelled in the sound of his voice, it was a little high pitched but musical. Despite their love-hate relationship, Arielle still displayed the normal girl-in-love traits. She missed his touch. His taste. His voice. But she understood now that it was at the point of obsession. After all, anyone the Dark Master brought back could only feel the seven deadly sins. She understood that this 'love' she felt for Caleb was an unhealthy amplification of anything she'd felt for him when he was alive.

What she felt for him was tragic kind of lust. What she hated in him was a gleeful wrath. What she wanted was a sick greed. What she saw in the relationships he'd forged with everyone else: Leilani, Lottie, Rouge, Shadow, and most of all Mytho was the darkest and wickedest kind of envy, an evil that consumed her from the inside out and dictated her body like the strings of a puppet.

It had been a year since she met him at the graveyard, and he'd fought for his life. When she was meant to deal the killing blow, she instead slashed at his neck, disfiguring his hair and mortally wounding him. She _could_ admit that she had been taken aback by the fact that Caleb was trying to mindfuck her by saying that he was in love with her brother (and it was _working_) and that was the reason Caleb had managed to dodge the attack, or she could lie and pretend that she wanted to live a little longer, so she might see Caleb suffer as she suffered.

"I'm here to take you away from these peasants."

"Can you –you know- _not. _With the high-and-mighty zombie speak? I mean I know our circumstances aren't exactly normal but do you have to make it _that_ uncomfortable for me?" he asked her, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Sorry, Snookums," she teased, taking his hand and leading him out of GUN's base.

"Listen, Arly, do you _really _have to blow this place up?"

Ah, she saw what he was doing: he was lulling her into a false sense of familiarity to make her go easy on the civilians.

"Well aren't you the selfless little trooper?" she replied, hands on her hips. He kept running his eyes over her outfit. When she was alive, she would have considered this flattering, you know? Because there were a lot of guys that adored her splendid beauty, and didn't get to see a lot of beautiful girls because they attended a military school, which is primarily where police-officers-to-be and juvenile delinquents were sent, yeah? Arielle could tell now that it was a totally different story. Caleb didn't see her as his girlfriend anymore, he saw her as a siren-like mistake that walked around without a beating heart, while she did carry a shred of what she used to be like, back when they would skip classes and share pixie stix on the rooftop listening to La Dispute and Passion Pit, or fighting about who'd most likely win if they were to fight to the near-death over tickets to see The Black Keys.

"I do. I do. If I don't, I'm putting my undead life in danger, so if you wouldn't mind telling everyone to leave before doing so? Oh wait, I still need to collect the emerald GUN is hiding."

"Why do you have to take orders from these guys again?" he replied.

"It's written into my HTML," she joked, patting Caleb on the head and wandering back into the GUN headquarters. "Everyone better be out by the time I find this emerald or you're going to be blown to pieces. Trust me, it won't be a pretty sight."

She walked through a sea of panicking civilians, parting it effortlessly while she turned around and beckoned Caleb to come closer and tell her where it was. "C'mon, Sweetie. For old times' sake?"

"It's not here, Arielle."

"Seriously?" she said, giving him a 'really?' look before smirking.

"It's your name."

"But it's not what you screamed during-"

"Yuck. Don't be disgusting," he said, before shrugging. "It's really not here, Arly."

"That's more like it," she replied before raising an eyebrow, her blue eyes shining curiously, "and why not?"

"Because Ash just drove it out in the getaway car."

Right after he finished the sentence, Arielle heard a deafening 'vroom' from outside and gave Caleb a scathing look before grabbing the bombs attached to her belt and threw out all the pins. Caleb started running for the exit, but she overlapped him and got onto her motorcycle, trying to keep the car she assumed was Ash's in sight before it drove into the wrecked streets of Crisis City.

* * *

><p>As you very well know, the warfare on the streets of Soleanna had disfigured everything beyond the point of recognition. That didn't stop the GUN agents trying to keep the last chaos emerald away from her. They brought out the heavy artillery. There was a machine gun attached to one of the utes aimed in her direction, and several more cars in front of her preventing her from reaching the one that Ash was driving, carrying the object she needed to complete her mission.<p>

She realised quickly that she was going to have to say goodbye to her motorcycle, and she patted tank lid right before veering it into the nearest ute. Quick as lightning, she stood up from the bike and gripped the barriers of the ute, flipping herself over them skidding across the back, taking out whoever was manning the gun with a leg sweep that sent them tumbling off the side to hit the road with a bloody slap.

She paid no heed to the crunch of bone as their body was crushed under another vehicle, or when that vehicle swerved violently and crashed into the highway barrier. Oh, look at that, they were now under the only highway in Soleanna that had actually survived the bombs: Lethal Highway.

She reached past the window to the driver's seat and quickly grabbed hold of the screaming driver's head, ending his misery by simply snapping his neck. After that, she leapt to the top of the car and vaulted from the roof to the next motorcycle. The force that she used to vault of the motorcycle unbalanced the driver, and they were sent to their side spinning around in another bloody mess. She left a trail of death wherever she stood.

There were still three more vehicles left before she would reach the one containing the chaos emerald. If she used the other GUN vehicles to her advantage, then she would be able to trick them into not shooting at her. The next vehicle she liberated didn't have someone manning the back, she supposed that they didn't have time to assign someone, well less work for her. She brought out her sub-machines and shot the driver in the head before leaping off the hood and wall-running against a GUN truck, followed by a path of bullets from the second last truck.

She leapt off the truck by springing off the side of the driver's door, muttering '3, 2, 1,' under her breath, waiting for the exact moment the truck would-

BOOM!

However many down, two to go. Unfortunately, the last agents were ready for her. Their shooting was disastrously accurate, meaning they'd actually prioritised skill over body when they created the getaway train. One of them actually managed to shoot her, what they forget when they smiled over getting one of the bullets into her, is that however much pain she was in when she was shot… _wasn't_ enough to kill her.

_Even if they aimed for the heart,_ she thought maliciously, watching as their smile turned into a frown, when they realised the bullet wasn't affecting her. Arielle's skin was searing and she's gone into a plane where she'd forgotten about physical pain all together, and she let loose the demon inside of her that screamed in bloodlust.

She grabbed the screaming GUN agent, totally ignorant of the seven or so bullets they fired into her stomach. She wasn't going to die; they should have just stopped already. She claw-liked fingers invaded the agent's mouth, each grabbing onto one set of teeth and slowly, excruciatingly pulling them apart until the corners of their lips started tearing apart, watching as blood spurted and the high-pitched scream of their terror resonated in their head.

"A solid B4," she mused quietly, oblivious to the blood splirting all over her face and clothes, soaking into her white fur and becoming grotty and disgusting. She heard a loud crack, and the limp body of the agent finally gave away the distinct sound of the jaw detaching, the bottom half of their face permanently maimed. She threw the body to the ground, reaching into her stomach to pull away the bullets the agent had lodged into her, ignoring the screaming noise of the driver. She had to dig a little to claw out the bullets, but she managed in the end, becoming relatively calmer now that the bullets weren't inside of her. She was going to have to go to Honey later to fix up these wounds.

"You insane _bitch! _You just fucking ripped his _jaw_ apart!" the driver screamed at her as she got out her sword, sliding it slowly out of the hilt, and quickly beheading the driver, blood oozing from the stump of a neck.

_Definitely quieter than the previous tactic. _

She made one final leap to the back of Ash's truck, letting out a seductive purr noise as she slowly wrapped her blood stained hands about the side of his neck.

"Been a long time, Ash…" she said, her words laced with lust and amusement as Ash.

"Do me one favour, yeah Arly?"

"Sure," she whispered into his ear, "anything you'd like."

He gulped as her words blew his black hair about, "Tell Mina I love her, okay?"

"Okay."

Snap.

* * *

><p>"Wait a second!" Caleb screamed as she tossed him to the ground, blue eyes wide with fear. He was absolutely filthy, she knew mutants were having a hard time getting around but she managed to sneak to the river occasionally, when it wasn't filled with corpses that is.<p>

_Corpses unlike me of course._

"Sorry, Callie. Dark Master wants you in here so that Silver doesn't know that his girlfriend is still alive," she sing-songed, wagging her finger at him as he tried to fumble around for any weapon that she could use. It had been over a year since Arielle had blown up GUN's headquarters, and Caleb couldn't even muster up a hello for her.

"Cream…" he muttered quietly, clenching his fist. "I've been taking care of her for over a year, Arielle. How do you expect her to survive on her own? But you don't care about that do you?"

"Cream's a non-mutant," she replied, examining her nails, "she can rot for all I care."

Caleb ran a hand through his black hair before getting up again, making no hostile movement towards her. She felt something shift in her limited emotional range and scowl at him.

"You know that isn't going to work," she scowled at him. "There are some of us revenants that only have the capacity to feel the seven deadly sins."

"Haha," he laughed humourlessly, "Is that what you're calling yourself now? You getting sick of the term 'zombie'?"

"_Yes,_ actually," she grinned, leaning against the cell door. "Don't worry about it, Callie. I know you're just agitated because you're going to have to kill to survive here. There's this new fighter called Dante, I think. I can't wait to see if you two will have a match against each other."

"You're _seriously_ going to just leave me here to fight against other mutants to survive?" he murmured quietly, actual hurt in his eyes. But then again, he might have been faking it. It had become harder and harder to decipher Caleb's emotions now. She guessed with was the war affecting him.

Out of her backpack she produced three bottles of aloe vera, there had been some old shipments which were refrigerated on one of the old buildings she'd ransacked. "Here you go. This should be enough to keep you sane for a few more months. Rouge and Shadow will have broken you out by that time."

"Why are you trying to comfort me?" he asked tentatively.

Her eyes widened for a fraction, startled if you could believe it, before she opened the door to the cell and slammed it closed.

Arielle was about to sneak out of The Colosseum (formerly The Egg Dome) when a rushed 'Wait!' broke her brooding sense of though.

"Please don't do this…" Caleb muttered.

She rushed to his side, her large blue eyes locked with his as she reached between the bars, weaving her fingers into his messy black hair and kissing him soundly and quickly. She let out a resigned sigh, as if she still needed to breathe, and disappeared melting into the shadows.

_I love you._

I think…

_If I'm even capable of it any more._

She walked away from The Colosseum as the next round began and fanfare initiated the start of a blood bath.

_Rouge and Shadow will get you out. I won't get in the way, because I want you alive. Because…_

Arielle clutched at her empty chest cavity, willing away something that definitely shouldn't have been there.

If she had a heart, it would be breaking.

**tbc.**

* * *

><p>If you're confused, you're meant to be. I think. There are a lot of things that are happening and intertwine during this arc, involving most of the main characters. The actual length of the time skip will be revealed on the last chapter of the Limbo Arc. Review please!~<p>

**kacey.**


	66. A Dark Past, A New Future

**Anthem of Our Dying Day**

66

**Three Years Later**

_On a damaged and worn computer monitor, simply meant to convey the events of another location, a flicker of light appeared. The light became a diamond which opened up to display a corridor. The corridor was one of many joined in the labyrinth that had once been The Egg Dome, but now served as The Coliseum, where mutants from all around Soleanna were forced to battle to the death in order to live._

_A sheep Mobian in charge of watching the many screens didn't pay any heed to it as there were more just like it providing more entertainment. He cast dark grey eyes to the screens broadcasting the last bloody battle, where a grim-faced ferret walked off the last corpse now being dragged away by robot aids. Doing this, he totally missed the shadows cast by intruders in the cells of the mutant dogs. _

"_Simon?" the door opened to reveal another Mobian, this time a lizard, dressed in the same uniform of the guards, hired to make sure the mutants weren't causing any trouble._

"_Yes?"_

"_I have a feeling there's an intruder on the premises, have you seen anything unusual on the camera?"_

"_Nope."_

_Suddenly, a blaring alarm went off, signalling that there had been a break in. Simon looked towards the cameras to see that mutants everywhere were running out of their cages, the bars of their cells seemed to have been incinerated or blasted apart. Mutants were overwhelming the prison guards, killing them and stealing the keys to unlocking the anti-mutant-power chokers on their necks. _

"_What the fuck is going on?" the lizard said, his head snapping to every monitor to try and figure out the reason for the prison riot. As soon as his eyes flashed to the perpetrator they were blinded by a bright red light. The legendary light of the Fallen Angel. _

"_Oh shit, that's got to be…"_

"_Shadow the hedgehog," Simon said in awe as several screens were filled to the brim with more blinding red light. _

"_Chaos Blast!" one monitor screeched._

"_What are we going to do? All of the mutants are escaping!"_

_One by one, each of the cameras were being blasted apart or losing transmission. There were dozens of highly sophisticated, encrypted codes designed to make sure the cameras would survive, but no matter how fast the lizard typed, each of them was being overwhelmed by the hacker. There was no one who could have done such a deed so fast. One would have to be either a genius… or a technopath._

"_What was that?"_

_Something in fur of dark yellow rushed through several of the monitors at once, completely disabling all in rapid succession. _

"_Is that…?" the lizard murmured._

"_No… it can't be!" the sheep gasped, his dark grey eyes filled to the brim with fear. "He's _dead_!"_

_On the final camera, a black clad fox slowly walked into the foreground of the image as if in slow motion. The sight alone forced a steak of fear into the hearts of both those watching him. Slowly and deliberately the fox raised a firearm until it was pointing right at the camera and said in a clear, deliberate tone; "Let's dance."_

_There was a bang, and the camera went out of commission. _

"_I… I can't believe he's still alive."_

_The sheep gripped onto the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white._

"_Foxtrot is alive."_

* * *

><p>Radical City Racetrack was an abandoned course that used to be enjoyed by the entire family, until ten years ago when people suddenly started going missing and rumours of the Tails Doll inhabiting its roads put the entire park out of business. So for ten years it has been used as a mechanical dump, its water was soiled with battery acid and it's roads, held down with so much robot rubbish, became unnavigable.<p>

_Know that I will battle for you and if the arms turn white, you will survive in Radical City. _

Tails didn't know who this mysterious 'DA' was, but as his protector, a note he had left on his parent's headstones led Tails to safe haven when the war began.

There were three fronts in the war: Eggman and all his supporters, those that wanted to destroy all mutants. Then there was the Battle Bird Armada: an army that wanted to destroy Black Arms mutants and those without powers. And of course there was the Church of Argus who wanted to destroy everyone who wasn't a mutant.

Tails' bounty was one of the casualties of war, an insane amount; one billion rings. It was for this reason that everyone thought that he was already dead.

Sometimes he didn't mind, but then again there were times that he wished he could see his old friends again. They were out, fighting a war… possibly dead, and here he was, cowering in Radical City.

Over the years he'd spent here, he'd adopted friends who also decided to come here for shelter. He'd met a coyote called Virgil, an electrokinetic that always helped Tails build whatever he could from the piles of waste laid to rest in Radical City. Over time he'd discovered Bean and Bark, former bad guys that now just wanted somewhere to wait the war out. And one unfortunate night, Cream turned up almost half-dead for him to save. According to her, she was left here by Caleb; the traitor who had apparently taken care of her like brother would have, until he couldn't any longer.

Bean was a former member of the Battle Bird Armada, and he had been teaching Tails Methel Alewah, the battle bird's signature fighting style. It was one of the only things he could do to past the time, when he wasn't scouring the junkyard for bits and pieces he could use to make their lives a little easier. All of them lived in an abandoned shopping mall waiting for the small radio they had to pick up anything positive.

He was walking the lonely paths of Radical City right now, looking for parts, maybe even some food he could bring back to his make-shift group when he spotted something bright and yellow. He walked closer to it, his eyes widening in recognition when he realised what it was.

"My old board?" he muttered to himself. He furrowed his eyebrows, looking around with caution.

He hadn't seen his old board since Caleb stole it the day the war started. Did that mean that-?

Tails was so focused on the board that it was too late when he slammed right into someone. He looked up right in time to see Caleb accidentally drop something into the water of a nearby canal. He was so shocked by his appearance he couldn't even begin to fathom words, but as always, Caleb was quick to the punch.

"Well, at least this time it wasn't forty-thousand rings."

Tails couldn't believe the audacity. Before he was even aware of what he was doing he started throwing punch after punch, kick after kick, wanting to pin the white fox down and end him right there.

"Holy shit!" Caleb dodged a kick and ran back a few steps, holding his arms up in surrender. "Wait! I don't want to fight you."

"You _traitor!_" Tails screamed, rushing at Caleb with years of pent up frustration. He threw limb after limb, trying to catch the evasive older fox or wrestle him into a chokehold. He was so angry and he wanted to see the him at his mercy. "You're the reason Amy was killed!"

"Eggman already knew where you were! He would have sent the bomb off even if I wasn't there to anger him!" Caleb defended himself, but Tails wasn't having any of it. He ran after him like a fox possessed trying to land any hit that would cause him as much pain as he'd felt over the years. There was something odd about them fighting though. For some reason he felt at a disadvantage. He looked up to see that Caleb's eyes were glowing.

"Stop using your empathy and fight me properly!" Tails demanded, managing to tap one of Caleb's legs and send him toppling. Even though Caleb moved twice as fast as Tails it looked like he was a whole lot weaker when it came to fighting. As soon as Tails managed to grab Caleb's hand, he wrestled him to the ground. Caleb was so much weaker than the last time he'd saw him fight. Now Tails could overpower him, and he was only seventeen.

Tails punched him in the face, the blow so fast and powerful something in Caleb's neck snapped. He didn't try to shy away from the blow, but afterwards the older fox deflated, unwilling to fight anymore. Tails was about to strike him again when a high pitched shrill stopped him.

_"Stop it!"_

The sixteen year old ran over to them, her great ears trailing behind her as she moved to separate Tails and the traitor.

"Why are you trying to stop me from hurting him? He's the reason Amy's dead."

Cream furrowed her eyebrows turned to Caleb, examining his swollen cheek and then turning back to Tails. Caleb had passed out from the pain. He was definitely a _lot_ weaker than Tails had assumed, especially if he was to pass out after one punch.

"If you think about it properly, you'll realise that Amy and Blaze would be dead, regardless of whether he was involved or not. I told you Caleb had his reasons, but you're just unwilling to listen to him."

"I can't believe you're defending him!" Tails snarled angrily.

"Caleb took care of me when my mother was killed for _two years_ or have you forgotten? I'll repay my debt by making sure no one from the Black Arms harms him for what he's done." Cream's big brown eyes were serious as she grabbed Caleb's limp body and threw him over her shoulders. Tails narrowed his eyes at him before letting out a huge breath and following Cream back to the shopping centre.

* * *

><p>When Caleb woke up, both Tails and Cream were sitting by a fire, Bark and Bean were sleeping not too far away, as was Virgil, but he was awake and watching both teens intently.<p>

He got up slowly, looking around cautiously, trying to figure out if he was in danger or not before searching his pockets for a small little flask.

_Aloe vera, _Tails noted. Before the war started, he realised that Caleb's addiction to the drink was reaching a critical state. He wondered why he'd need such a thing at the time, but Tails was pretty sure he understood now. He'd had a few hours to think about it, but he wanted to hear it from Caleb's mouth.

"Sorry about that," he said, his voice thick and cracking. "I can't fight like I used to."

"Are you going to tell us why?" Tails replied darkly.

Caleb narrowed his eyes as he looked at the younger fox, his dark blue eyes revealing something akin to hurt. He shook his head and waved away the thoughts with one of his gloved hands.

"I come here after three years and the first thing you want to know is why I betrayed you, right?"

"Caleb…" Cream murmured softly.

"I want to get that out of the way first," Tails said, as if he was conducting a business transaction.

Caleb crossed his legs one over the other before sighing and rubbing a hand over his face. Tails found it hard to believe he'd been willing to sacrifice his safety for someone like him. The empath looked sadder now, weighed down by something heavy and dark. He turned to Tails and started talking.

"No lies. No half-truths. Whatever you've come here for, I need you to be completely honest before I comply," the yellow fox said.

The older fox nodded. "I needed Eggman's help," he stated simply.

"Why?" Tails demanded, his voice harsh and cutting.

"Do you know what Dr Gerald Robotnik's greatest achievements were?"

"Robotnik?" Cream asked, "Is he related to Eggman."

"He's Eggman's grandfather," Tails answered. He remembered most of this information from the interactions he'd had with Shadow during the Black Advent, after The Crimson Night. "And his greatest creation was Project Shadow."

"Second biggest achievement?"

"Just tell us," Cream said, even though, to Tails, it seemed like she already knew the answer. During the two years that Caleb had been protecting her, they seemed to share a secret that was in the open, but no one could unveil.

"His research notes about Neuro Immuno Deficiency Syndrome."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Virgil asked from his position across the fire.

Caleb furrowed his eyebrows and laughed. The sound was bitter and with no humour.

"Guess who inherited the notes after Gerald was executed?"

"Eggman."

"Do you know what would happen to Lottie, if I died?" Caleb asked Tails, making sure he never looked away.

"No."

"There are a dozen people that want her dead, and only two people willing to care for her. One of them is a homicidal murderer, and the second is a volatile GUN agent who isn't allowed to have children."

"So that's your excuse?"

Caleb looked like he was going to reply with some snappy remark, but instead he just bowed his head and murmured, "Yes."

"Amy _died_ because of a weapon your father supplied."

"I know."

"Blaze is _dead_ because of the same reason."

Caleb looked up and started shaking his head.

"No! Wait. The reason that Arielle threw me into The Colosseum in the first place was because I was trying to tell Silver Blaze isn't dead."

"You were in The Colosseum?"

"For a few days, yeah," Caleb admitted, shaking his head.

Tails frown became deeper. He'd only heard about The Colosseum through the radio. From all around Soleanna, mutants were being forced to fight each other to the death. This was providing entertainment to Eggman's followers, and cutting the mutant population down, one battle at a time.

"Did you have to fight?" Virgil asked.

"Yes," Caleb closed his eyes, shaking his head once again. "I had to fight for three battles. Then Rouge and Shadow managed to get me out."

"So Rouge and Shadow are still alive?"

"Yes. They're part of the leading force of GUN, but Arielle blew apart their headquarters."

"Why?" Cream asked.

"…She was looking for me."

Tails let out a growl, but Caleb held up his hands in surrender, "I'm trying to explain here. At the time, I was trying to tell Silver that Blaze is alive."

"How do you know that?"

"I was looking for food and weapons in The Violet Manor when I found some of the guards were still alive in their infirmary. Blaze is still alive, but she's in a coma."

"Why is Silver in The Colosseum?" Cream gasped in shock.

"Arielle said it was because he was being a 'disobedient brother', whatever that means. The Cult of Argus put him in there because he was refusing to kill non-mutant people."

"Why is Silver following the Cult of Argus?"

Caleb shrugged, finally looking his age. Dammit. How old was he? Nineteen now. The years had treated him badly. He looked like he was about twenty-two. "Beats me. It's a struggle getting anything from Arielle these days."

"Why hasn't she tried to kill you?" Tails said curiously.

"I don't know." The statement sounded like a question to him. "I think…" Tails watched as he clutched his heart through the fabric of his shirt. "I think she really wants me to suffer, the way that she did. You know… when _she_ was alive… when _she_ had NIDS."

Tails was expecting it, but it was hard hearing the confession from Caleb's lips. Tails' eyes hardened and he looked down. Despite the fact that Caleb was a traitor, and he had conspired with Eggman for personal gain, he couldn't help but feeling an ache in his heart for his dying friend.

"So… you got the NIDS from Arielle?"

Caleb expelled his comments in a gushed breath, "Shit luck, eh? The first girl I ever fall in love with, and she's got this really rare brain disorder."

"Why did she give it to you?"

Caleb looked down, "Because I killed her father."

"Really?" Tails blurted out. He couldn't stop himself. "You killed Nathaniel Truscott?"

"My childhood was _really _fucked up, okay?" Caleb said. "When I was like, twelve or something, my dad came to the academy, and taught me how to use a sniper gun. He said that if I didn't kill Arielle's dad, then he was going to kill Lottie, and like a stupid kid, I believed him. The bastard wasn't even against using his own daughter as leverage. But Arielle was watching me, and decided that that she was going to get revenge, whether I was doing it to save Lottie or not."

"How awful," Cream murmured.

"She made me fall in love with her, and then passed on the disease. But for some reason, before she died, she decided to donate her heart to me, so I could live a little longer."

Tails shook his head, "Your relationship doesn't make any sense."

"Well," Caleb said, looking Tails in the eyes. "That's my dark, terrible past revealed. I'm a murderer, a double-crosser, and I'm going to die. Are you happy?"

"Of course we're not!" Cream interrupted, but Tails didn't say anything.

"Why exactly did you infiltrate the Black Arms?"

"Eggman said that if I ruined the relationships between everyone in the Black Arms, then he would give me an experimental cure he was working on."

"And you _believed_ him?"

"What else was I supposed to do?" he growled defensively. "I didn't want to _die_ okay?"

"You really have come to terms with death, now that you've said it out loud, haven't you?" Tails sighed, watching as Caleb fiddled with his small flask of aloe vera.

"I'm a mutant," he shrugged. "Death has always been closer to me than to other people. I've grown accustomed to that. Listen to this: because mutant genes focus on the fight or flight reaction, my empathy powers get stronger the closer to death I am."

"Well," Tails muttered, "That's one advantage."

"Tails," Caleb said, locking eyes with him once again, "We were friends."

"We _are_ friends," Tails insisted.

He might have been a traitor, but Tails didn't know if he would have done anything differently, if he was in Caleb's shoes. And yeah, they were friends. Even if Caleb hadn't interfered, Eggman still would have found a way to bomb their home.

"And will you grant this dying man one final wish?"

"What is it?"

"I want to see the war end, before I die."

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"You're Foxtrot," he said, adoration clear in his voice. "You're the key to stopping this war. You're the voice of the revolution."

**tbc.**

Writer's block is a cold, grumpy, merciless bitch. It isn't much, and it sucks, it _really, really_ does, but this is all I've got. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things, but only if you review. Encouragements are nice. I feel like shit now, honestly. Forget about the limbo arc. I fill it in later, when I can, but I can't at the moment, and I don't need reminders.

Thanks to Stonefaced610, Blood Brandy, Heartless demon wolf, Taichi L. Yagami, The Loner in the Shadows, Ija, DJHunter, Exploder, Yuke Navy Pilot, Darksonic52, MajorBalto243, Fully Eroded, uknownmysteryguy, Elemental Hybrid, Guest and Slicerness for reviewing the last chapter.

**kacey.**


	67. A Taste of Warfare

**Anthem of Our Dying Day**

67

_"I want to see the war end, before I die."_

_"How do you expect me to do that?"_

_"You're Foxtrot. You're the key to stopping this war. You're the voice of the revolution."_

* * *

><p>"<em>Just tell me what to do."<em>

He walked along the edge of the abandoned shopping mall. In an old Extreme Gear shop lie some of his old creations, created in the three years since the war started.

In the beginning of the war, Tails had almost gone insane from being so lonely. There was absolutely nothing to do in an abandoned place like Radical City. He'd even gone around _looking_ for a place Tails Doll might have resided, because surely he couldn't have cleared out an entire race track without leaving some evidence behind, right? Tails missed Tails Doll, in the strange way that you missed some strange, murderous psychologically insane entity. He hadn't seen him since before the war started, but that was alright because according to the radio Tails had managed to make from all the spare parts lying around Tails Doll was fighting for the mutants. _I hope he isn't killing people that aren't mutants. _Tails couldn't imagine Tails Doll killing someone that didn't deserve it, if anyone deserved to truly die. He wasn't sure.

During the three years since the war started, Tails had found himself thinking about morals and whether his were in the right place after all. If he really had the choice, would he kill someone that deserved it, like Eggman? If he were in a room with Eggman, right now, would he be able to shoot him through the head?

Tails had always been a fixer. He found joy in bringing items together and breathing life into his mechanical creations. He could never imagine destroying something, especially someone else's life. Even when given the chance to harm MarDean, he hadn't had the killing intent he thought he did. He hated MarDean (not so much now) to the core, but he couldn't kill him.

He picked up his makeshift radio, catching Virgil walking up the staircase towards him.

Virgil was a brown coyote, who also happened to be an electrokinetic. Tails, Bean, Bark and Cream came to him whenever they needed to use something electrical, or whenever they needed help starting the fire. Virgil was another refugee of war, who decided that coming to Radical City and facing Tails Doll, was better than what was going on beyond its haunted perimeter. He'd only been here for a few months now, so Tails didn't know much about his personality or background. All he'd managed to pick up was that the coyote was twenty. He was a very quiet.

"How are you doing mate?" he asked the young fox.

"I'm trying to figure out what I'll need," he said, lifting up the messy little radio. He'd become attached to the item, being one of the only functioning things he'd managed to create from the junk he'd found around the area. Tails couldn't do a lot without batteries. He'd managed to create two low-quality air gears that wouldn't last five real races for leisurely transport around the junk heaps.

"You really sure you can trust your friend?" he asked. Tails identified a lilt to his voice that sounded like disapproval. Tails had never been one for reading people, and three years of living in isolation hadn't helped in the slightest. "You and Creampuff said yourselves he's the reason for your other friend's death."

"I don't think Amy would have blamed Caleb. Sure, she would have at first but wouldn't have held a grudge." At least, that's what Tails thought. He didn't doubt Amy's kindness. _I miss her,_ he thought absently.

It wasn't just her she missed, but it was the idea of normalness, or however close to normality they'd been when the war broke out. He missed going to his favourite stalls in the Black Market. He missed Extreme Gear racing, he missed going out with his friends, he missed his garage, he missed his kind customers, he missed going to his parent's grave in the cemetery, and he missed everything about home; Amy's home cooked meals, the fighting over stereo music, pranking whoever fell asleep on the couch, and his garage. He missed his garage most of all.

Sometimes he couldn't stand himself. He couldn't believe he was hiding in Radical City, when the rest of his friends were out there trying to survive a war.

When Tails had first created the radio, he found out that there was a bounty on his head. One _billion rings_ if someone found him, alive or dead. He didn't know if anyone really cared for money anymore, but when he was a naïve fourteen year old, being hunted down like a wild animal had been the scariest thing in the world. Even now, being seventeen years of age, he was still daunted by the idea that there were going to be people that wanted him dead.

"He sounds broken, "Virgil commented.

"He's had a really tough life," Tails said quietly. "The happiest years of his life were a lie, as I've just realised. But… he's a good guy. I know it."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Caleb does. Once I've packed everything I need he's going to tell me what it is. Cream's coming too."

Of course, it hadn't been his idea that Cream come ("Cream, you're going to stay here where it's safe." "The hell I am, Miles Prower. I'm coming whether you like it or not. I haven't spent countless hours practicing Methel Alewah with you, Bark and Bean to just hide away here." "Dammit Cream…" "There's no point in arguing.") but over the years, she'd proven herself a fair fighter and an even better arguer. Even worse than that was that Caleb hadn't backed him up in his decision to leave Cream behind. Bark had supported him, but the polar bear didn't make a decent argument in his defence.

Tails had managed to scavenge a few items of clothing that he repeatedly wore for longer periods of time than he'd liked. It was even harder for Cream to find stuff that fit her, but they'd managed with the few items they'd found. Washing them in water was a rare occurrence, seeing as most of the water in Radical City proved poisonous. He packed those items in a little duffle bag and left the radio behind for Virgil, Bark and Bean's convenience.

"You're not against Cream coming, are you?"

Virgil shrugged, "She's sixteen and stubborn as a mule. It doesn't matter whether I want her to stay or not. She's doing what she wants. Where do you think she got that from?"

Tails chuckled nervously, _So some of my stubbornness rubbed off on Cream, I guess there's no one to blame but myself._

The both of them headed back to the camp site where Cream and Caleb were discussing something with Bean.

Caleb said, "As it turns out, no one's safe in the war outside. Battle Bird Armada wants to kill normal people and Black Arms mutants. Church of Argus wants to murder natural mutants and normal people. And then there's Eggman who wants to kill all Black Arms mutants. I don't want to get back out there more than you do."

"How do you tell the difference between which mutants are which?" Bean asked. "Doesn't really seem to matter at this point."

"There's only one way: scientific examination of cells. There's a Babylonian gadget they're calling an Identifier, which can tell the difference between mutants and normal people in a split second."

"How did they get a hold of these items?" Virgil questioned.

"They were snuck into Soleanna before the war started. Turns out Eggman knew where the legendary Babylon Garden was, but he didn't know where the key to levitating it was, until he realised that Babylon Rogues have it."

Tails' heart thumped uncontrollably at the thought of one certain Rogue. He'd spent countless months wondering if Wave thought of him. Did she believe he was dead too?

"So the Babylon Rogues are alive?"

Caleb nodded, before smiling a little, "Actually, you know that USB that I dropped into the water when I met you?"

"That was a USB?" Tails had been so angry at the sight of Caleb that he didn't care what he'd dropped into the water. If it was USB there was no chance of regaining it now. They didn't have the equipment to save it.

"It had two encrypted messages from it. One was from Rogue, and the other was from Wave."

Tails felt like an complete idiot. He should have heeded Cream's warning and listened to what Caleb had to say before completely thrashing him like he wanted to.

"I can tell you the gist of what's happening."

"How is she?" Tails said impatiently. "Is she alright? What has she been doing? The Battle Bird Armada haven't gotten to her yet, right?"

"They're right," Caleb smirked, "'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'"

Tails flushed in embarrassment, something he hadn't done in a long time. He brushed the comment off and glared at the older fox before he gave in to tell him what he wanted to hear.

"Wave, Jet and Storm are okay. A year ago they hijacked one of the Battle Bird Armada's war machines and have hid it somewhere in the Solean forest. They haven't been attacked for over seven months, last time I checked."

"When was the last time you checked?" Tails demanded.

"I don't know, three weeks ago I think?"

"What have you been doing?" Cream asked in confusion.

"I'm under Shadow's orders right now. We're trying to bring back everyone from Black Arms together again. Everyone from the Black Arms garage was prophesises to help end this war. Do you remember? **(i) **There was a reading from the fortune tellers that Black Wings was going to be able to bring Eggman down."

"You know I don't believe in that mystic nonsense."

Cream put her hand on Tails', her big brown eyes pleading, "Just listen to him."

"Black Wings is _so_ close to Black Arms. Arms _are_ wings for birds, if you think about it. Plus, we're under orders from Shadow, who's none other than the-"

"Fallen angel," Tails finished.

"The commentators at the grand prix weren't kidding when they said you were destined for greatness, Tails."

"That's very vain of me to believe," Tails admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

"Well, whether or not you like it, we're going to make this prophecy come true."

"Forget that nonsense for a bit," Tails said, waving the thought away like smoke. "You're sure everyone from Black Arms is still…" he gulped, "alive?"

"I've managed to find everyone in the last six months," Caleb assured, "so far everyone's in good health."

_Except you,_ Tails thought.

"Our plan firstly is to make it to a rendezvous point with Shadow and Rouge at the Mystic Garden Centre. There you'll be able to see that Knuckles is alright."

They kept the goodbyes short. Tails had been with his companions for long enough to hold them dear.

"I hope we can see each other, when the war is over," he told all of them.

"Same to you, mate," Virgil said.

Bean, who had been teaching him Methel Alewah ran towards the fox and enveloped him in a hug, one that had Cream joining in. "It won't be the same without your grumpy bum around!"

Tails rolled his eyes and squeezed, watching as Bark gave him a nod, the only affirmation he was going to get from the giant bear. With that, they started heading north, towards the Solean forest. Tails had stolen back his hover board from Caleb, while the older fox and Cream used the two practice boards that Tails had made over the three year period.

It was difficult to find a pair of magnetised boots for Cream to wear so she wouldn't fall off the board. Most of what Tails wore back when he was fourteen had been magnetised so as to not fall off the board, but since he didn't have any of that now, his board had inbuilt safety footholds, which he activated.

Radical City was also a section of the city, so it took well over three hours to navigate through the junk piles as they reached the end of the haunted borders, where they would launch into the terrifying no man's land of war.

"Alright," Caleb said, landing ungracefully on his board. As soon as he hopped off it, the stupid contraption wheezed and spluttered before finally giving up. "First order of business is to find new boards."

"Where are we going to get them?" Cream managed to glide of her own, but her own board was completely done for. They weren't stable enough to perform tricks, and no tricks meant no fuel.

"There…" Caleb pointed towards the large stretch of road signalling the end of Radical City Racetrack, and the beginnings of the warzone. Everything in between them looked scorched and broken. Caleb was pointing to what looked like an abandoned building that looked to be in pretty great shape. There were sand bags around the trenches surrounding it, meaning that someone was occupying it.

"You mean three against however many is in the building? There could be fifty soldiers in there!" Cream said.

"There's around six," Caleb said.

"How do you know?" Tails questioned him.

"I can feel it, with my empathy," he answered dismissively. "They're Battle Bird Armada soldiers."

Tails didn't know that Caleb's empathy could reach that far, but then he remembered him saying yesterday that the closer he got to death, the stronger his empathy became.

_Bittersweet deal…_

"But that should be nothing for two kids trained in Methel Alewah, an empath and a technopath right? The plan is easy; Tails will disable whatever tech he can, I'm going to use Pain on whoever passes, and Cream is going to take them out. Alright?"

"Are you crazy?" Tails hissed at him.

"What was your first guess?"

"We can't take on a group of highly trained bird assassins! We're only teenagers. And you're not even twenty yet, so you count as one too."

"C'mon Tails, where's that spirit you had as a fourteen year old? Most of these soldiers are injured anyway. Doing this is hardly as dangerous as breaking into Eggman's top secret compound, _alone_, to save your friends."

Tails was taken aback by the response. All around them bombs and bullets flew about them, just out of range but he'd forgotten that at fourteen he used to run into these problems at full force, unaware of the danger he was putting himself in. Admittedly, he was a little naïve.

"I'm not the same kid."

"And I can't tell whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Guys," Cream said, pointing to a guard that was walking on duty. They hid behind the remnants of a fighter ship half buried into the ground. The Battle Bird soldier was holding a strange kind of device that looked oddly like a weapon. Tails recognised the sleek shape and colour to be like the Babylonian weapon that had attacked him after he'd visited the construction sites to find the Babylon Key. Would it emit the blue rays of light that the last weapon had? Tails remembered the last time he was hit with one of those weapons. He'd been knocked out cold. But when Wave had used the weapon on herself, it had done nothing.

Caleb reached towards the guard and closed his fists. Tails and Cream watched in amazement as the guard dropped his weapon and clutched his head as if his brain were ready to implode. He let out a cry of pain that alerted two more guards to their post, and Caleb used Pain on them as well. Tails was surprised. Three years ago, Caleb used Pain once and then he was ready to pass out.

"Alright," the older fox turned to the two, "remember that at this moment I am physically weaker than Cream right now, so as painful as it is for me to say, you've got to make sure I'm not taken out, so I can protect you two when they have you in a chokehold. I can only use Pain on one person at a time."

He snuck out from behind the fighter ship, turning back to Tails and Cream with an expectant look. Tails couldn't believe how hunky-dory he was about the entire situation. _Well, he's used to the entire warfare deal. _Tails was still trying to get used to the constant bombing and the shooting in the distance. It was like the Black Advent all over again. Things had been so peaceful -if not eerie and quiet- at Radical City. There was only the occasional bomb that made noise, and even then it was very feint.

He followed him towards the trenches, looking back and noticing that Cream was still behind the plane. "C'mon Cream, just like we practiced." He grabbed her hand and tugged her forward, watching as her already huge eyes widened further.

"Tails, Caleb's _different._"

"I know. His inhibitions are lower."

They moved forward and followed Caleb as he launched himself over the sandbags and examined the weapons. Tails stole the harness from the birds that Caleb had incapacitated and settled it around his waist. They wouldn't work on the Battle Bird Armada, but he could use it on normal soldiers and Black Arms mutants. They made their way through the building. He tried to read the older fox's body language, since he was the one who could tell if someone was in the next room or not. Sensing people's auras had to come in pretty handy when trying to be sneaky.

They moved into the next room and Caleb raised his hand again. When Tails and Cream followed him around, they saw a bunch of injured soldiers who seemed to be in a sleepy daze. Caleb must have been using Lethargy on them.

"Are there any air gears here?" Tails asked them.

One of the birds, a toucan, said, "Why should we tell you?"

Caleb twisted his fist and the toucan started to clutch his head, for some reason the sight seemed to horrify Tails. He couldn't believe how easily he was using his power to hurt others. It just seemed surreal; Caleb, who knew all life was precious.

"Stop it!" the toucan's comrades said. "We'll tell you."

Tails saw the smirk on their faces too late. Just when they were about to get their information, a pair of feathered arms constricted him into a choke hold. He was dragged backwards. Cream cut the air with her yelp, "Tails!"

Tails opened his mouth and thought of the only thing he could to stop the binding. Luckily, they didn't manage to secure him around the neck. He bit down until he tastes blood and the constrictor let go. Once he was free he performed a roundhouse kick, only to be faced with the barrel of one of the Babylonian weapons. Time seemed to slow down as the trigger for the weapon was pulled and pain flamed across Tails' face like hellfire.

But just when he thought he was done for the pain started to fade, but hid nerves were jittery, and when he closed his eyes his Negative vision activated. He saw the weapon and automatically assumed it was out of juice judging by how bright the weapon was. Both Black Arms and Babylonian weaponry ran on some kind of laser bullets, or rings, or- whatever had hit him.

"What? You should be _dead!_He's a Black Arms mutant, isn't he?!"

"He's a halfbloo-ack!"

Tails performed a roundhouse kick on the poor fellow, sending him into the wall. Cream had apprehended another attacker by suffocating him until he lost consciousness. Caleb jumped over the bodies and, judging by how he was running around bends without looking, Tails assumed there was no one else in the building. Tails climbed up the stairs after him and found a stash of weapons and air gear. It was combat air gear too, a special kind that Tails hadn't seen before.

He picked one up. These combat air gears had a special label called 'Powers', just like racing gears were labelled as 'Speed' and Tails had labelled his own gear a 'Fly'. It wasn't the kind of gear that Caleb and Cream were used to, but it was better than the terrible gears Tails had made in Radical City.

"Tails," Caleb said. Tails looked up from examining the gear to face him. "You're a halfblood? Why didn't you tell us?"

"What's a halfblood?"

"It's someone that already has Natural mutant _and_Black Arms blood. Depending on how much you have of each, you can resist some of the Babylonian and Black Arms weaponry and force fields. So that's why you could make it through both of the force fields at Eggman's laboratory."

Caleb gave Cream the board and kept another for himself. It looked like they were all the same anyway. They went downstairs, and giving the unconscious birds one final look they went outside. Tails took a moment to see if this area was familiar to him. They were still in Crisis City and would make it to the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre.

"Ready?" he asked, throwing down his board.

"Yeah."

**tbc.**

* * *

><p><em>I know it's short. Leave me alone about it. I haven't got the plans written down, which is something I should be doing. Stuffs getting in the way but I thought I should at least get something small out.<em>

**Bryce98~ **Dude. I can't email you, you haven't given me your email.

kacey.


	68. Race to Mystic Ruins

**Anthem of Our Dying Day**

68

The wind burned his eyes they made their treacherous way through the burning Crisis City, swerving around corpses and powered down robots. Buildings all around them were being bombed and burned to the ground. Screaming chorused along to the sounds of bullets and explosions. Crackling debris flew about them like they were being whirled in the midst of a tornado. Fire was everywhere. Crisis city was really living up to its name.

The infuriatingly irritating thing about being the most skilled gear rider out of the trio is that he had to make sure he was keeping pace with Caleb and Cream. The both of them were using combat gear and because of that, they were incredibly lacking in the speed department.

_And it's not just that, _Tails thought, jumping over some more destroyed rubble, _these buildings are almost impossible to navigate. Everything looks so different. _

How was he supposed to make it through his city when he couldn't even recognise anything? So he made sure he trailed just behind Caleb, ready to make the bends and twists to reach their destination.

He could see the destruction in the air, the dust motes were crackling and alive with the smell of dead rotting corpses and the fumes of robots put out of commission. They had to be incredibly careful, one false move and they could be shot, or even worse, bombed apart. Caleb was making sure to use the roads with the least complications; the ones without burning structures or those inhabited with people fighting to the death. He couldn't tell exactly where they were, but he was sure taking the peaceful routes were taking them really out of their way. He knew it was safer to take these routes but he really didn't want to be out in the open like this. Caleb was used to it, but he was sure Cream was hating being in the battlefield as much as he was.

Tails was losing patience and desperately wanted to scream out to Caleb how close they were to the Garden Centre when he recognised something; Lethal Highway. It was cracked and broken, but he could recognise it. The remains of the Black Arms Garage would be around here too. Thinking about the Black Arms brought terrible, unwanted memories to the surface. His fingers formed into a tight fist as he tried to fight away emotion. What he really needed right now was a clear head to navigate these stupid ruins.

So far, all they needed to do was swerve left and right to get through the rubble. Sometimes they needed to hop in order to get over something, but they weren't serving as too much of a problem so far. That was until Caleb led them around one of the buildings, right into a warzone.

"Fuck!" they heard him swear loudly as he ducked his head and swerved to the left violently, almost crashing into a wall. They didn't see the angle of the battle, and Cream was launched forward when she tried to break to a stop. Her feet were still attached to the board so both went sprawling, head over heels, tumbling into the wreckage of a burned down house.

"What was that?" they heard someone say.

"I couldn't see. Do you think you shot something that wasn't a robot?" said another, deeper voice.

Caleb and Tails hopped off their boards in tandem, rushing to Cream with worried looks on their faces. She was face down in the dirt, away from her board by a few meters. Caleb instructed Tails silently to get the board while he looked over the rabbit to see if she was alright.

Tails scurried around a wall, trying to locate the exact spot from where the voices had come from. He pressed himself closer to the cement, melding with the wall as best he could, pulling apart only to peek around the corner where he spied five rough-looking Mobians walking towards him. He panicked and shuffled back to where Caleb was taking care of Cream, taking the extreme gear with him.

"I definitely heard something that time."

"Yeah," there was a grunt, "Lewis, you go over there, Jeremy and Isle head in the other direction."

"Did it sound like a girl to you?"

"What I wouldn't give for a fine piece of ass right now," the one who spoke first said, making a disgustingly lustful groaning noise, "let's find this one so we can have our wicked way with her. I haven't had a good fuck in months."

"That's because no one'll have you."

There was another grunt. Tails skidded to a stop by Caleb's side. Cream was biting her wrist in pain, trying to muffle the noise as best she could. "I don't need permission."

_What a disgusting…_

Caleb's intake was sharp, and Tails took after him and stopped breathing, trying to be as silent as possible. There was only a crumbling wall separating the trio from the gaggle of war torn soldiers. Soldiers they might have been, but Tails couldn't call them honourable men after he'd heard what they'd said before he was by his friend's side. These men were despicable, so corrupted by violence they couldn't think straight anymore, driven by their bestial desires.

_I can't let them get their hands on Cream. Who knows what will happen if they do._

Tails glanced towards Cream, locking his blue eyes with her wide brown ones for a second. They were filled with pain. He looked down and saw what had happened. A bullet or some sharp projectile had grazed along her leg, leaving huge bloody scratches in its wake. Caleb had been in the middle of tearing some of his flannel off to stop the bleeding when Tails skidded to their side.

"I can't see anything."

"Look a little harder."

They waited for twenty agonising seconds for those thugs to pass, and just when they thought they were out in the clear, one of the soldiers decided to look behind the little wall they were sheltered behind. Caleb ducked out faster than lightning and performed a GUN tactic meant to silence someone immediately. He hit a pressure point and the Mobian immediately went limp. The older fox gently settled the body right next to Cream before going through his things. They were allowed to make a little noise now, since the rest of his squad was no doubt somewhere else.

He found a knife in his pocket, handing it to Cream. She stared at him with even wider eyes, clearly saying 'What am I meant to do with this?' He took the assault rifle in his hands and shoved it into Tails' arms. Tails didn't bother to give the white fox the same expression, but his mouth did fall open to a gaping width. Sure, he knew a bit about firearms from the many that Shadow had kept hidden in the garage, but he'd never actually held one before, let alone shot one. He looked from the gun to the thug on the ground, his mouth going dry, his pulse picking up. He could barely hear the noise going on around him.

_What does he expect me to do?_

"Keep watch," he whispered as he continued to tear his flannel into something that could stop the bleeding. The younger fox experimentally popped his head out of their makeshift shelter, wiping eyes teary from the heat surrounding him. One of the thugs was just turning a corner, maybe several meters away when Cream let out a high pitched squeak. He turned around instantly and spied Tails peeking out from the shelter.

_Shit! _he thought as he bounded away from where Caleb and Cream were hiding.

"He's here!" the thug said, pointing his gun in Tails' direction. He gulped and blinked furiously, activating his negative vision. Everything became awash with dark blue, while the technology in front of him was outlined in startling white. He raised his hands and willed the chambers of each of the firearms to concave, stopping the progression of the bullet before any of them would be able to fire.

"It was a he?" another one of them groaned with irritation. "What a waste."

Tails shuddered as he raised his weapon, watching as they laughed at his display. He'd be laughing to. He was a seventeen-year-old that was shaking at the thought of firing a gun at people that wanted to rape Cream, and possibly kill Caleb and himself. He had to make sure he was strong enough to protect the people that were important. Caleb couldn't defend himself with his empathy at an all-time low, Cream was injured.

"Look at the little fox," said a Mobian otter, his right eye covered eye-patched and the remaining one scarred. "He's shaking in his boots."

Tails tried to stay his ground, trying to keep his eyes off the makeshift shelter where the both of them were hiding. He couldn't give anything away.

"Look at him. His clothes are barely torn or burnt."

"Oh, he's got two tails."

"Lewis is missing, don't underestimate him."

"Sonny," said a Mobian bull, stepping forward with his weapon pointing to the sky, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"Wh-whose side are you on?" Tails demanded, his voice cracking with the pressure. He hadn't been in open conflict with a gang who wanted to hurt him for three years. His grip on the gun was slipping, sweat was soaking his fur.

"Now you're a mutant, so we're going to have to kill you, but we'd rather you not waste your ammo trying to protect yourself."

"What's the point?" Tails forced himself to pull off a rigid smirk, "Your guns aren't going to work anyway."

He heard the clicks as they pulled their triggers. Their guns started smoking and one of them dropped. A Mobian horse stared at him before yelling, "What did you do to them?"

"What kind of mutant is he?!"

"No," said the otter. "You can't be…"

Using a hidden reserve of courage Tails rushed at the bull, dodging to the side when he swung his gun to hit him, performing a vault over his shoulder and landing with a knee to the otter's face.

"Can't be what? Can't be _what?!_" the remaining soldier, a rooster by the looks of it, cawed.

Tails got up and danced away from them, curling his fists and shifting his feet into a defensive stance, throwing away his gun. His limbs were flooding with adrenaline, and the fear in his enemy's eyes curled his lips in a smirk. He needed to stay confident, to keep his mind clear. The enemies would read you if you let them.

_Push forward, _he imagined Shadow instructing him. _You're going to be fine._

"Look at that scar on his eyes, and the way he fights! It's _Foxtrot!"_

The rooster aimed his gun at Tails, forgetting that the firearm wasn't working and Tails grabbed his wrist and twisted them violently, making him drop the weapon. The rooster tried to kick him, the horse, and the bull all tried to charge him at once. All of them were easily taller than Tails, and he wouldn't be able to leap in time to clear himself, so he thought of one of the only things at his disposal.

He started rotating his tails, moving from forty-five to three-hundred mph in four seconds flat. He was able to lift himself out of the fray just in time, watching as the three of them crashed into each other clumsily. The otter made a running jump for his sneaker, but he flew out of the way just in time, landing right next to where he discarded his weapon. He picked it up again, swinging it into the otter's face hard enough to knock him out.

"Ugh, how did I forget that this pest could fly?"

"There's a brilliant prize over your head, kiddo," the bull said advancing towards him again.

"A lot you can do with one billion rings once this stupid war is over."

Tails' fur bristled with anger, "How can you think about rings in a time like this? And what are you going to do if the mutants win?"

"The mutants aren't going to win, boyo," he answered with a wicked smirk. "Too many of them are being cooped up in The Colosseum. Sooner or later all of them are going to kill each other trying to survive, and even then the survivors are going to be shot dead before they can leave as free men."

"No! You can't be serious?!" he exclaimed.

"It's true though," the rooster said, "first winner was dead within three weeks of being released. There's nowhere to run. Eggman's going to get his wish."

They all took a step forward, and Tails took another step back. The rooster made a running dash at him and Tails avoided the collision by running at the rooster and skidding underneath his legs, grabbing the bird's tail and pulling it as hard as he could. The rooster gave a cry of pain as Tails came away with blood and feathers in his hands. _Be creative, make sure the enemy can't read you; _he remembered a tip that Bean had told him when they were play-fighting in Radical City as he let go of the feathers. Without bothering to catching his breath, he brought out the rifle and, using one unsteady hand, fired a crooked line right next to the bull's hoof, frightening him and putting him off kilter. Tails managed to use this to his advantage, kicking off a slanted piece of rubble twisting his body and performing a tornado kick right at the bull's head. His sneaker connected with his head with the force of a wrecking ball and instantly knocked him out.

Now there was only the rooster and the horse to take care of. The both of them were weary of him now, unable to take their guns for granted anymore they really needed a tactic to take this young fox down. "Do you still want to do this?" he asked them. The rooster, favouring his safety over his pride, decided to step back before running away. The remaining thug wouldn't let himself be defeated by a seventeen-year-old.

Just when he was about to charge into battle once again, Cream let out another pained cry, alerting the horse to her presence. The thug widened his eyes, the sides of his mouth lifting in a psychotic grin. "So you were protecting someone?" He turned his whole body in the direction of the makeshift shelter, ready to find his friends when Tails lifted his arms and cocked the rifle, letting out a breath before pulling the trigger.

The loud bang reverberated in his ears before he set the weapon down and ran to his friends on shaky legs. Behind the wall shielding them from view, Cream's leg was treated and Caleb was looking up at Tails, smiling. "Good work." He got up and helped the rabbit, who was limping now, but could still hold her weight.

Caleb dragged out the extreme gear, and was about to help Cream onto hers before Tails said, "Wait!"

"What?"

Tails pointed towards the soldier who he'd just shot in the leg. He was writhing on the ground in pain, making the most terrible noises. Caleb raised his brow at Tails before shrugging a shoulder, "What do you want me to do with him?"

"Help him!" Tails said, rushing over to the horse who couldn't see beyond the pain. "If he bleeds to death, he's going to die."

"Tails, this man made jokes about raping Cream and attempted to murder you," Caleb said darkly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"That doesn't matter. I wouldn't have shot him if I thought he wasn't going to hurt you two." He locked eyes with Caleb's hard blue ones, "Please?"

"You have more heart than is healthy." The older fox let out a long sigh before walking over to the horse and saying, "Try and make him stay still." Tails held down the solder's arms while Caleb took out a knife sheathed at his side and cut a large section of the horse's shirt. He undid the soldier's belt and fastened it around the leg, cutting off the circulation. After that he tied a tourniquet using the strips of fabric he'd taken from the shirt.

"Aren't you going to take out the bullet?" he asked.

Caleb laughed before shaking his head, "It isn't necessary. This is pretty much all I can do at the moment." The white fox put a boot over the horse's chest and grabbed his snout so that he was looking right at him. "When your friends wake up, you better beg them to take you to a first aid kit. Personally, I wouldn't mind if they left you for dead."

With that they boarded their extreme gear and continued their way to Mystic Ruins.

**x**

It was twenty minutes later when they finally arrived at the site for the Mystic Ruins Garden Centre, or what was left of it anyway.

They were on a hill overlooking the entire site, including the near endless battalion of robots firing at the small line of Nocturnes standing at the edge of the Garden Centre. The first thing that Tails noticed was that all of the glass that housed the plants inside was broken, and some of it was wrecked and burned. From the people that were defending the site, he could see Metal Knuckles, Fina, Shade as well as Emerl who was moving through the battlefield like a robot possessed. To his discouragement, he couldn't see Knuckles anywhere, but he knew that he had to help the Nocturnes regardless, because it looked like they were about to lose the fight.

The three of them got off their extreme gear and bent low so that no one would be able to see them. Tails looked over Cream to see if she was up for getting herself behind the firing lines, but that wasn't going to happen. Now that she'd been riding for twenty minutes, she couldn't even keep her legs from wobbling dangerously. Caleb wouldn't be any help because he couldn't really take any hits anymore. He'd exhausted his empathy and that rendered him useless, much to the fox's chagrin.

"I've got to help them," Tails said to them.

"No, Tails, you don't," Cream said, worry in her eyes. "You already saved us from those thugs."

"Cream, the Nocturnes are losing," he said, clear determination in his voice. "I'm going to help."

Caleb shrugged, "We're behind enemy lines, so you've got the element of surprise. I'd suggest using some technopathy to take the robots out. Careful of the commander though, he's human."

Tails could see him, behind roughly a hundred meters behind the robots, trying to take people out with a sniper rifle. Luckily the Nocturnes were cautious of him, and trying to stay out of his site.

_First order of business, take out the sniper. _

Tails heaved in a large breath before cautiously starting to walk towards the battle. There was nowhere to hide behind, but it was alright, with one blink he would have all the power he needed. It was getting dark now, nearly night time, so seeing with Negative vision was a little difficult, but after seeing the robots sparking to life he knew he'd be alright as long as there was still electricity running through their circuits. There were a few robots that were guarding the back of the battalion, as there should be, but Tails managed to shut them down with a wave of his hand. He could feel that each time he shut a robot down, a little bit of his strength was depleted. It looked like he had to be more careful with himself. He couldn't afford to collapse in the middle of battle.

After taking down the ten robots guarding the back of the perimeter, he managed to sneak up behind the commander. He held the assault rifle he'd brought along closer to his chest as he closed his fist, using his technopathy to the weapon to destroy the chamber of the sniper rifle. If he pressed the trigger button now, it would certainly-

BOOM!

Cursing loudly, the commander turned around, looking for another weapon when his eyes landed on Tails. His eyes widened as he reached for another assault rifle close to him, but Tails kept on using his technopathy to blow up the guns.

"Shit!" he swore, reaching for another weapon. A rifle. Destroyed. Another one. Annihilated. A crossbow. OH FUCK.

Tails ducked to the side, his heartbeat picking up by two hundred percent. Luckily, with a little more inspection, he realised the crossbow had a motor powering it. All he had to do was disable the batteries and it wouldn't work anymore. Thank Solaris.

"What the _fuck_ is this shit? I will not be beaten by a fucking child!" he yelled, grabbing the crossbow by the body and advancing Tails, probably with intentions to use it like a club. Regaining his breath, he decided to curve around the commander and hide himself within the rows of robots too busy firing at the Nocturnes.

He held his hand out towards the robots, slapping his hands against the chest plates of all of them. His mind was moving at a thousand miles a minute, performing complex solutions in his head to get around the programming Eggman had set up in order to cause the robots to self-destruct. While he danced through the rows of robots, he left a complex web of robots that were ticking time bombs, just waiting for the commander to take the bait and come in and get him. Turning off his negative vision, he ran for the middle of the battlefield; no man's land. Not the smartest decision he's ever made, but there were about fifty odd robots who were about to set the sky alight.

The fox dived out of the thicket of robots just in time for the chain of explosions to set off. One by one, the robots started to malfunction, spark, and then blow up in a flurry of light and sound. The Nocturnes gasped as one, and then there were cheers. Tails thought he'd stumbled out of the explosion without an injury, but it took some time for the pain to finally hit him. In the noise and confusion, he'd done something horrific to his leg. The pain throbbed at his ankle and nearly blinded him with tears. He wiped them away and saw that his leg was bent at an almost impossible angle. Something had dislocated.

He was going to try getting up when someone grabbed him by the tails and started dragging him back into the explosion of robots. Tails had only set off about fifty of them, but there were still, easily, around one hundred left. They were still firing into the middle of the field, and now Tails was a sitting target.

He screamed in pain as the commander dragged him along, now rendered useless because of his dislocated ankle. Fire ran all over his leg as his talons bit into his hands, pearling with blood now. His body shook and he thought he was going to pass out with pain and absolute exhaustion. Constant blinking brought him in and out of Negative vision. He thought he was a goner, until there was a very distinctive shot, and the grip on his tails ceased. The commander fell down with a fwump, and there, holding his hand out for Tails to take, was Knuckles.

He was so glad to see his friend, but the first thing he noticed was that there was an eye patch covering one of his violet eyes. The blackness was swaying and ebbing at the edge of his vision. His elation was short lived as Knuckles grabbed his arm and he was forced to hop on his good leg back behind the lines of fire. Every step was agony.

"Tails! Tails! Can you hear me?!" he yelled.

The exhaustion was starting to take its toll, but Tails knew he had enough energy to help the Nocturnes out. Using his last reserves of strength, he used his technopathy and rendered every single one of the robots useless, by telling them to self-destruct all at the same time.

As Tails collapsed the last thing he saw before everything went to black was a gigantic pillar of fire.

**x**

"… Can't waste anymore of… Stupid idea…"

"…S'Alright… Waste on me… Not that Serious…"

When Tails woke up the first thing he registered was that there was a terrible pain in his leg, but it wasn't as terrible as it was on the battlefield. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and wiggled his neck around a little, finding that nothing else seemed to be out of order. It seemed that he was in the medical wing of the underground quarters in the Mystic Ruins. Despite the absolute wreckage the garden centre had seen, the medical wing seemed to be in perfect order, if not a little bit messy and bloody.

"Oh, you're awake." Tails shakily raised himself on the bed, coming face to face with Knuckles, Cream and Caleb.

"Thank god you guys are okay," he said with relief.

"Hells Bells, Tails, are you fucking insane?" Caleb cursed, leaning forward in his chair to flick Tails in the forehead. Tails didn't mind so much, he was getting his bearings back. He shrugged, unable to reply to his comment without further explanation as to what he'd done wrong this time. "Using your technopathy on _that_ many robots is enough to put someone in a coma."

"But it didn't," Knuckles defended him, casting Tails a proud glance. "And because of that, we were able to get everyone safely inside without too many major injuries. You did a good job there, Tails." Tails took the time to take in Knuckles' appearance. He looked all in all the same. He mentally calculated that Knuckles would be twenty-two now. His clothes were old and torn, and his gloves were even more so. There was something about his face, the shadows under his eyes, and the rough fur of his muzzle that showed exactly how much he was suffering through this war. He was intrigued by eye patch.

"What happened to your eye?" he couldn't believe that was the first thing that burst out of his mouth.

"One of the Battle Bird Armada damaged it. I can hardly see out of it anymore. It happened a long time ago, right after the war started. It's alright." Tails felt incredibly sorry for Knuckles. He couldn't imagine what it felt like to know he would probably never be able to see again. Maybe when the war was over he'd be able to get himself a bionic eye. When Caleb said that most of his friends were alive and healthy, he didn't think this kind of tragedy happened. He wondered if any of his other friends were suffering from these deformities.

"I'm sorry, Knuckles," Cream said, speaking for both Tails and herself.

"Anyway, I'm glad to see the both of you are alright!" Knuckles said, unable to keep from plastering a grin to his face. He slapped his knees. "Not to be grim, but everyone thinks- _thought_ that you were dead."

"I've been hiding out in Radical City." Saying it made Tails feel a pang of shame. He'd been hiding out in a dump while the rest of his friends were fighting.

"That's where Tails Doll used to be hiding. Now that I think about it, that's an ingenious place to hide. The place is abandoned, right?"

"Yeah," Tails nodded. In this case, it had to be the best place to hide. "Very lonely though."

"You had me to keep you company," Cream said cheerily. She was dangling her legs from the chair, as if she didn't have any injury at all. Now that Tails thought about it, how did he manage to heal so fast?

"Hey, how come my leg is almost healed?"

"Heartnet gave the both of you some of his aloe vera."

"Caleb!" Tails scowled. "You need that… to… keep from going… insane," he whispered the last part.

"My illness isn't that bad yet," he said crossly before shrugging and standing up. "I set your leg right; you'll be able to walk on it by tomorrow. I'll leave you guys to catch up." And with that, he exited the room.

Tails tackled the topic that was hanging in the air, "Have you forgiven Caleb for what he did?"

Knuckles tapped his fingers alongside the arm of his chair, "Have you?"

"Well, I realised that Amy probably would have died even without his intervention. Eggman would have bombed the place anyway." He said this with a calm resigned manner that could only be the effect of the aloe. Normally he felt a little more emotional when he was speaking about Amy's death.

"But what about Blaze?" he demanded.

"He hasn't told you? Blaze is still alive."

"What the fuck…?" Knuckles snarled under his breath before getting up. "It seems he hasn't told me _everything_. We'll catch up later, Tails. Get some rest."

Cream and Tails looked at each other before shrugging.

**tbc. **

_Alright, here's the next chapter. I'd apologise for the slowness, but you're probably all sick of that already. I've been working on my original fiction, Ravens Way. If you want to check it out, I'll provide the link underneath the author's note. It's about fallen angels and features my very own Caleb as a human. There's only one chapter up at the moment, but virtual cookies goes to anyone who's willing to check it out. _

_link: http : (slash) (slash) (triple w).wattpad. com (slash) 14862291-ravens-way-prologue  
><em>

_Just fill in the gaps and combine it together. _

_Cheers._

_kacey. _


	69. Discontinuation & Re-write Announcement

Believe me, I never thought it was actually going to reach this point, but it has and there is nothing that I can do now to fix it.

Anthem has reached the point where it's too hard to continue now that the plot has become far too hard to keep track of. I don't find writing it fun because I constantly have to read over twenty chapters before understanding where I am, story-wise.

So, yes. This is the official announcement for this permanent hiatus.

But before you start tracking down my address to slit my throat while I sleep, I haven't completely abandoned this story.

I'm going to be re-writing it.

Clearer and better ideas so I don't have to cringe when I read my own work anymore.

For those of you that have become fed up with me and won't bother reading the re-write, I hope you had fun. For those of you that might stick around, I hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,

Kacey


	70. Permanent Discontinuation

indefinite discontinuation?

-deo


End file.
